


Pirate Catra

by HeinousKim



Series: HeinousKim - weekly drabbles [4]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Canon-Typical Violence, Drabble, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:02:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25395841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeinousKim/pseuds/HeinousKim
Summary: Horde empire's colony was crushed and Adora killed Horde Prime, but she and Catra didn't resolve their lovers-spat (because that's what it always was, regardles of if they where dating at the time), so Catra became a pirate.Catra and her pirate crew return to the Fright Zone port to sell their loot, party, and relax. But relaxing is boring so Catra picked a fight instead.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Catra & Entrapta & Scorpia (She-Ra), Catra & Entrapta (She-Ra), Catra & Scorpia (She-Ra), Entrapta & Scorpia (She-Ra)
Series: HeinousKim - weekly drabbles [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796623
Comments: 7
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Magic exists, The Horde's tech is that of the brittish empire ca year 1700.  
> Also Goatine is my name for the unnamed 'horned goon girl'.

Catra swung from a rope, jumped on a mast, the smaller one, and climbed up one of the firmer ropes. She still didn't like the ocean, she even got sea sick sometimes, but when she was exercising it was usually fine.

Bellow her the crew got ready as they headed into port. They had another good haul this time around, lots of money to spend and lots of supplies to sell. Kyle steered them in. He wasn't the best helmsman, but on open seas or familiar waters like this it was his job since he wasn't much use otherwise.

Catra jumped down, grabbed a rope mid fall, and swung slightly while looking down. Lonnie was divvying up the tasks to the rest of the crew, Skorpia and Rogelio where strong so they'd work on unloading crates, that was really the biggest thing and most of the crew would help them with it. The more tiered members of the crew would go to their usual buyers, see if anybody was interested in the plunder, and Catra herself, as well as Goatine, would take a look around town to make sure they where still welcome.

That was so stupid. This was their home, and they still had to check _that_ of all things.

They pulled up the sails and Catra dropped down, headed out into the Fright Zone port. It was a boring town now, used to be that she and Adora would do all sorts of things they weren't supposed to do, sneak places they weren't supposed to be, take things they weren't supposed to have... They'd get in trouble sometimes, but the trill of the risk was what made it fun.

Then Adora had left her and... And she wasn't going to dwell on it.

"...Hord skum." She usually didn't pay attention to what people said, they rarely had much of interest to add anyways, but those words always caught her attention, it was how she gauged if they where welcome or not. From the way they dressed they where from Bright Moon, Sparkles' people. Merchants probably.

Most Etherians had an aversion to the area, but even among them the people of Bright Moon where the worst, they where too stuck in their ways, couldn't let go of the past.

Catra on the other hand, could, and did. She had ruthlessly climbed the Horde ranks, until she hit the glass ceiling, and when the collapse happened she had gotten out, stolen a vessel and become a pirate. Never once had she looked back, considered what ifs, or tried to make things the way they used to be, it wouldn't work anyways... With the exception of Adora related things. But she was working on that.

As she moved about people recognized her, many sneered, one or two talked behind her back, but it wasn't any worse than usual. That meant they could stay a couple nights before heading out again without running into any major issues.

She made her way back to the docks, to her ship, and on the way noted that Sea Hawk's boat was docked. Some of her crew liked him, others didn't, no-one lacked an opinion on him.

"We unload it all?" Catra asked Lonnie. The crates where piling up, taking most of the space that came with the dock space.

"Just about, and we've got Robert and Cassandra coming by soon to check it out."

Robert dealt in cloths and clothes, he didn't pay them quite as much as he could have, but he still payed them good money. He was trustworthy too, always payed what he said he would, never tried to swindle them.

Cassandra dealt more in clothes than cloth, and her prices fluctuated more. It would be good to hear Roberts prices on things before selling them to Cassandra so they didn't make a big mistake, but conversely Cassandra could pay out a lot more than him at times.

"What about the others?" They had mostly had cloth to sell, since that had been the designated product of the transport vessel, but they also had some valuables, mostly from the captains quarters, and some spices they'd need to sell.

"Glenn is out of town, should be back tomorrow, and the chefs guild is sending someone later in the evening."

"What about Ada?" She and Glenn where their go to valuables merchants, both payed their dues, though they had tried to pay way less than the items where worth before.

"She'll be here tomorrow, can't trust them on their own."

"We should bring in some others, just to be sure. Maybe ask Sea Hawk if he knows somebody."

"Uuugh, that guy's here?" Lonnie was one of the people who hated him, same as Catra.

"Saw his boat. I'll ask Scorpia to talk to him."

"Thanks."

"So who's guarding the loot while the rest enjoy the evening?" They usually drew lots for that task, and even she and Lonnie where in the bunch, heck, even Kyle was there since drawing his name meant Rogelio would be there too. The only person excluded was Entrapta, since their shipwright/surgeon was too easily distracted.

"We could put it in storage, got a decent deal on it actually, since it's such a small number of crates, just 13 silver," Lonnie suggested.

"Alright then, put them in storage. When will we need to be back for the spice sale?" When Catra was in charge of the Fright Zone she had gotten good at managing paperwork and the sort of administrational work Lonnie did for them, but Lonnie was good with it too so Catra only double checked the important stuff to make sure she didn't skim of the top. That included being present for every sale, and remembering the number of crates they had stolen of any given product.

"Seven."

With that Lonnie had shared all important news, so Catra made her way over to Scorpia, who was still unloading crates. She still had to ask about more people interested in their valuables. Not that they'd actually sell to someone untrusted unless they got their money right then and there, but it helped with gauging prices.

* * *

After they sold the cloth and clothes Catra went for a run, first through the city, trespassing slightly just for fun, and then in the woods.

When she was tiered enough she took a nap in a tree before heading back to sell the spices.

Chefs guild was really the only option there, as individual businesses only needed small amounts other than spice stores which needed regular shipments. Plus, these where probably rare spices in Etheria coming from some other continent the empire had colonized, no small business would know what to do with them.

After the sale was done, they got a big sum from just the spices alone, she went to The Hidden Mushroom. Her crew was spread out in taverns bars and pubs all over town, some maybe even in a nearby village, but that one was where she used to spend her evenings with Entrapta and Scorpia, so she was fairly certain she'd find them there.

When she opened the door the smell of sweat, Green-root meed, the cheapest of the local alcoholics, and garlic hit her. The garlic, wasn't really used much in their cooking, but was there to mask the sweat.

The floor, made of varnished wood, felt dirty, slightly wet, and in parts the varnish was getting worn thin. She passed some round tables, some a few filled with her crew, others, most, with other sea-men and ocean folk.

It didn't take long to notice Skorpia dancing on a table with Sea Hawk, singing a shanty, but Entrapta wasn't there. She looked around for her purple haired friend, finding her a short distance away, sipping on a small drink.

She sat down with next to Entrapta.

"You look tiered. Have a tiny drink!"

"Thanks, Entrapta, but I think I'll have a big one." Catra reached her hand up, catching the attention of the serving girl. "I don't know why I'm tiered. It's not like it was a particularly stressful or hard day today. Don't really get those anymore, come to think about it." The girl delivered a big glass of Green-root, her usual order.

"No... Maybe it's about being back here!"

"What?"

"You know, in Etheria." Entrapta looked unsure, tilting her head slightly. "I don't think you like it here."

"Why wouldn't I? This is where we're from, we're Etherians regardless of what people here call us."

"Yeah, but still. I think that's why you didn't try to take over the Fright Zone after the empire fell. You could have become the princess of the Fright Zone!"

"Princesses have magic powers, I don't." Catra reminded Entrapta.

"Yeah. Lord then, like Hordak!"

"Yeah, there'd be a fifty percent chance of revolt within a weeks time."

"Not really, we didn't rely on the rest of the empire for any resources and you could have probably kept most of the army loyal long enough make peace with the kingdoms.

"You're a good leader, Catra. That's why so many decided to follow you even after everything that went down." The complement was... She didn't expect Entrapta to have a very good opinion of her as a leader. They where friends, but she'd messed up way to much for that sort of faith in her to be justified.

"Maybe. I don't think it's an option now, though. They tolerate us for a while, but if we try to stay for good we'd get arrested. And I don't mean we as in the crew, just you, me, and maybe Scopia. I was Hordak's second in command, basically ran the whole colonies, you betrayed them when you joined us, and Scorpia was a fairly high ranking official too."

"Yeah, but that's fine, right! We'll always have each other, and more people are always joining us! You said it yourself a while back, we're building a pirate fleet, so even if half the crew quits we could probably get some more crew members from the other ships." Entrapta said, and she was right, their fleet _was_ big enough for that...

"Don't you think you'll want to retire someday?" Catra felt something, she wasn't sure why it mattered to her, but none of the things she said quite hit the nail on the head.

"Do you?"

"I don't know." Catra kicked the floor under the table. "It's just... even with all the pirate stuff we're doing, with all the fun we're having, there isn't really any sense of progression. I think that's why I kept climbing the ranks. I didn't want to stagnate so when I became Hordaks second in command, I pushed harder, usurped him, went to Horde Primes personal ship, tried to climb the ranks there."

"But that didn't work, so what did you do then?" Entrapta asked.

"Nothing." She sighed. "Just a while later Adora killed him and I stole his ship, renamed it 'lord pirmadonna'."

"What was it called before?"

" 'Lord Prime's ship'. They weren't very good with names in Horde central."

"I _see_." Entrapta stressed the word, dragging it out. "Well. You should do something to distract yourself while you're here. Maybe ask some girl out, that could work."

 _'Ask some girl out'?_ Her mind went to Adora.

" _What_?" Catra herd the venom in her voice, but it wasn't directed at Entrapta, per se.

"A one night stand. My research suggests a lot of people use it to distract themselves. Quite effectively too."

Scopia joined them. "What are we talking about, distracting who from what?"

"Catra from being here, so close to where Adora lives." Entrapta said.

"This is _not_ about her!"

"Yeah." Scorpia paused meaningfully. "We can _definitely_ see that."

Catra looked around, not wanting to keep talking about that particular subject. Ever. She noticed a few people she hadn't seen before, including that water princess, who was with Sea Hawk, and Huntara, who was talking with Goatine, her former subordinate.

"I'll go say hi to Huntara." She abruptly stood up from her chair.

"Okay! Say hi from me too!" Scorpia said.

"And think about that one night stand thing!" Entrapta called out behind her, a few people reacted to that, her crew mates might tease her about it later.

Goatine snickered as she approached.

"What's that about a one night stand?"

Catra waved her off, "Entraptas idea of how to have some fun while we're here." She turned to Huntara. "So how're the Wastes treating you? Still as chaotic as I remember them?"

"Oh, definitely. After the Horde left, and we made it clear to the kingdoms that we _like it_ that way, things went back to normal." Catra sat down next to her. "So how's pirate life treating our water fearing kitty?"

"Hey I'm not afraid of water!"

"Oh really, so if I order a glass and throw it your way..."

"You'd regret it, but I'm still not afraid."

"If you say so, kitty." Huntara smirked at her.

"So if we're avoiding actual names, what should I call you? Purple giant? Spear girl? Brute?

"I'm partial to purple giant, but any of them work."

"Then how about Reject leader? Left behind? ...Second choice?" Huntara took offense, but none of the names hit too close to home for her, not that Catra had been trying very hard at it.

"If you're itching for an early grave you can keep it up, pirate kitty."

"Why don't you step outside, see why half your crew joined my pirates."

"Sure, kitty cat, I'll bite." Both stood up, both chugged the remainder of their drinks, and they stepped out together, or well, Huntara was too wide to fit through the door at the same time as Catra, but she was just one step behind.

The reasoning behind the fight was contrived, an excuse more than anything, but that didn't really matter. They walked away from each other, backs turned, when Catra heard a suspicious sound behind her. Just a scuff on the ground, the same sound you'd expect to hear when people walk, but it was too close, closer than the last sound.

She ducked, gracefully avoiding Huntara's punch, and spun around with a low kick that Huntara dodged by stepping back.

This first exchange was as far from serious as possible. Catra could have dodged that straight jab by stepping to either side or launching forward, just as easily as by ducking, and her own kick was slow enough that Huntara wouldn't do more than stumble if it hit. But nonetheless the exchange served it's purpose, the fight had been initiated and both parties where moving.

Huntara swung heavy blows, while Catra flitted about, not within range to do much herself other than dodge. She could use her claws but...

Huntara charged at her and Catra jumped to the side, on a wall then over Huntara as she turned the way Catra had jumped.

She kicked the back of Huntara's right knee. As she toppled, Huntara used her left leg to jump backwards, the resulting motion being that she slammed her full body weight on top of Catra as they both went down.

The air went out of her lungs as close to a hundred Kilos of muscles landed on her, compressing her longs, fracturing a rib or two, it was a heavy blow she'd probably feel the next morning, and Catra almost retaliated with her claws, before she thought better of it.

Huntara was fighting unarmed, and she usually wouldn't count her claws as weapons, but they where friends so she'd give the bigger girl a handicap to make up for the lack of a spear.

Huntara moved to try a hold, getting her arms around Catra in a way that if she used force would be fatal, but Catra slipped free just before Huntara would have crushed her, if this where a fight to the death, then quickly put some distance between them.

Catra wasn't satisfied yet.

She dived in ducked below a punch, then launched herself forward, effectively tackling Huntaras back leg before crawling though her legs to reach her opponents back. She mounted Hunrata, one hand grabbing the back of Huntara's shirt, feat planted just above her hip bone, claws lightly digging in for purchase. Huntara reacted quickly reaching over her shoulder to grab hold of Catra's wrist. Catara started leveling several knuckle blows on Huntaras neck and the latter’s movements faltered.

Huntara Cried out in pain, and her knees buckled, but she powered though and almost reached Catras wrist after just three blows. Catra let go of Huntaras shirt, sacrificing the extra power it provided and punched with both hands. Huntara violently swung around, hands still ready to grab Catras wrist, so Catra allowed herself to be flung off, not even getting another punch in before she landed a meter and a half away.

Huntara didn't let her recover, starting a series of fast blows, weak when compared to her full force punches, but the sequence was fast enough that Catra was too busydodging to get any serious blows in on Huntara.

She closed the distance, taking a hit to her shoulder but once within Huntaras guard she retaliated with an uppercut that had the purple giant stumbling to avoid it. A quick leg swipe and she was on top of Huntara, ready to pound Huntara's face and throat.

"-Hey!" Catra was distracted, quickly thrown off, then increased the distance to two and a half meters just to be safe before looking to whoever had interrupted their fight.

It was a uniformed officer, Catra didn't recognize the uniform but it stood to reason that once the Horde had moved out they'd change it to something else. The kingdoms had apparently allowed the Fright Zone to become an independent nation, or at least independent enough that they had their own police uniforms.

"What? Can't you see we're busy?" Catra called out in response.

"Who started this fight? Cause I'm gonna have to arrest that person."

"Seriously? We used to do more than this for daily sparring back in our cadet days." Huntara said.

"Public fighting is still outlawed now, so I'm going to have to ask you to come with me."

Catra opened the tavern door, she had ended up close enough to it when the fight had ended. "Hey Scorpia! Bring me a big drink, something strong!"

"Oh-okay."

"What are you doing?" The officer asked.

"I'm too sober to call it a night, so if I'm going with you I'm gonna need one last drink."

Scorpia came out with a beer glass between her claws, whatever was in it was mostly clear, with just a hint of green. Catra gave it a sniff, smelled like lime and pear, a lick of the drink revealed just how strong the drink was, burning in her throat, but it tasted good. She chugged the whole thing, the burning down her throat felt good, promising a warm, fuzzy evening to come.

"So, uh... What's going on here?" Scorpia asked as Entrapta joined them.

"Oh, me and Huntara are getting a free room for the night."

"Oh! are you doing the one night stand thing?"

"No, we're just getting arrested is all. I'll break out in the morning, don' worry." Her mind was already dulling from he drink.

"I think you'll get in more trouble for breaking out than you're in from this fight, pirate queen." Huntara said, but it didn't matter. Pirates ignore the laws and spit in the face of authority, so that's what she would do.

"I dun care! I do wa I want."

"Well have fun!" Entrapta said, waving goodbye.

"I'll see you guys soon, love you." She turned around to leave, following the officer.

"I thought you loved Ado-" Catra whipped back around to face Entrapta.

"Platonic'lly!" As an after thought she added, "An' no I don't."

"Riiight." Scorpia said. "Good night kitty cat."

"Night."

She, Huntara and the officer left, the ground was swaying slightly, but as a pirate, she was mostly used to that sort of thing.

* * *

There weren't any holding cells in the Fright Zone or, maybe there where some now but, the port city didn't have any so they went to the prison in Horde HQ. It wasn't, like most prisons, made from stone blocks, but rather carved from the bedrock itself, making it one of, if not _the_ , most secure prisons in all of Etheria.

After entering the building you had to descend a spiral staircase then walk down a long hallway before you got to the actual cells. the interior was covered in stone blocks, but that was more for the aesthetic than function, she knew.

"This brin's back mem'ries."

"Where you arrested before?" The officer asked her.

"No no. I used to be in charge arroun' here. Vis- Vis'ted my old boss after I had her arr'st'd."

They reached the big gate at the end of the hall, it was a steel bar gate, followed by a wooden door and then another gate. It took a minute to get through if you where doing it right, shorter if you left the gates unlocked.

The gates weren't locked.

"You had Shadow Weaver arrested? How come I've never heard about this before?" Huntara asked.

"It was a paaain. I ha- d to learn all the buro- byuro- paperwork stuff on my own. Nob'dy else even knew what I had to do, or where we got things fr'm."

"Still! You usurped Shadow Weaver! She had been in charge since before even _my_ cadet days. Hell, I don't even think anybody knows how long she was in charge."

They reached the first cells, the walls between cells where made of stone blocks while the wall towards the hallway was metal bars, the door in was also made of metal bars. One of the first cells was occupied, but the other one wasn't and that's the one the guard opened.

"Tha' snot everythin' I did. I usurped Hordak! He was jus' a figure head anyways but I made him do what _I_ wanted."

The guard shooed them inside, and they complied, no resistance.

"Your treacherous ways knows no bounds. Truly, you are a master we could all learn from."

" 'm a pirate!" Catra shot her arms up and spun around on a heel, almost falling, but Huntara caught her.

The guard locked the door.

"So where was Shadow Weavers cell?"

"It was down a floor, an' to the..." Catra looked at her hands, "that way." She pointed to her right, with her right hand, looking to see if it betrayed her. It did not. "Then it was a bit further d'wn a hall." She nodded, satisfied with her explanation, then turned around to look at the beds.

Neither bed was clean, one slightly yellow all over, the other less yellow but with a dirt stain from shoes near the end of the bed. She threw herself on the bed with the brown stain, she wouldn't be using that part of the bed anyways with how she usually curled up whilst sleeping, then bunched up the thin blanked around and below herself.

Huntara didn't complain about the bed choice as she wordlessly took the other one, staring at the roof for a bit.

"Did you enjoy our fight?" Huntara asked, after maybe two minutes of silence.

"Yeah. It was good, kicking your ass."

"I remember it a bit differently, you almost loosing several times over before you landed any serious blows."

"If that had been a serious fight I'd ha- I'd've ripped out your throat, an' if that guard hadn't disstracted me" Catra surpressed the momentary urge to puke, "your face would be in a lot worse of a shape th'n it is."

"Maybe. _Or_ I could have grabbed you and locked you in a crushing hold."

"You wish, purple giant, I won."

"Maybe you can dream up a better result, Kitty, cause that's _not_ what happened."

They stayed quiet after that, allowing Catra to fall into the sweet embrace of sleep.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

C atra was in her bunk, aware but refusing to wake up fully. She liked sleeping in, even if it wasn't the best look on her. And it was fine, really, to not be as perfect as Adora always tried to be, because she was still grate at what she did. Grate enough to become the force co m mander.

She heard Adora walking down the hall outside of the  barracks , she seemed frustrated, and heard the unlocked prison gates swing open.

Her eyes shot open. She was in a cell, Huntara was sitting on the bed  across the room. Adora was about to walk into the prison and see her.

"What's wrong, Catra?" 

"Uh... I've been avoiding Adora for a while. She's coming in here now and I really don't want to deal with her, can you hide me?" Outside the door she herd Adora talking to, what she  assumed was, an officer, but not the one who had arrested her.

"Sure?" Catra shot out of her bed, pushed Huntara slightly then hid behind her torso, just in time to hear the door unlock.

She heard just one set of steps approach the cell.

"Where's Catra?"

"Donno, maybe she broke out? She said she would." As Adora moved Huntara  subtly turned her body  j ust enough to allow Catra room to stay hidden.

" O h."  _She sounds sad, has she been looking_ _forward_ _to_ _seeing_ _me?_ "Well if you see her, can you tell her I'm looking for her?"

"Sur e. But why  _ are _ you looking for her?" Catra silently wondered that too, it's not like they where friends or anything. Did Adora want her tried for war-crimes?

"I... I miss her."  _What the…_ Hadn't she moved on at all?

"What the fuck?" Catra peaked out from behind Huntara. "What the hell kind of reason is that?"

"Catra? Why were you hiding?"

"Because I'm avoiding you, w hy the hell else would I be hiding. Now why do you miss me? Aren't you supposed to hate me?"

"I-" A light blush spread accross her face. "I can't hate you, you're Catra! My easily  jealous , always  mischievous childhood friend, Catra. The super cool, super fun, Catra. You're my best friend in the world, and that won't ever change. "

"But- You're being stubborn! I'm the only reason your rebellion didn't win within a year of you defecting, I fought you  _so_ many times, tried to kill you at least a few times, and I'm the biggest threat to you  _in the world_ ! How can you  _still_ consider me a friend, after all of that?" Her blood was boiling, almost enough for her not to notice that her eyes had started stinging, tears threatening to make themselves known.

"Well, I can't blame you for staying with the Hord e , we grew up there, and most of the time you tried to make sure I survived, even at the risk of loosing the battle."

"I. Tried. To.  _Kill_ . You. Adora. How has that not sunken in yet?"

"Only a couple times," Adora waved her off, "and you where hurt those times, really, really hurt, I get that."

Catra sighed, exasperated. "Can't you make up your mind? Either stop being my friend completely or don't leave me in the first place."

"I never wanted to leave you Catra, never." Adora looked away. "I just couldn't stay in the Hord e , and I asked you to come with me, many times, but you wouldn't so...”  she shrugged.  "Anyway, just sit tight and I'll get you out of here in no time. Both of you. You where just sparring right?" Adora wasn't looking at them anymore, slowly turning to leave.

"It was more like a proper match," Huntara said with a big smile. "One We didn't get to finish."

"You don't need to bother, at least not for me. Hey, Huntara, you coming along on my breakout or what?"

"You really think you can get out of here? Didn't this prison hold Shadow Weaver?" Huntara asked.

"I can pick this lock no sweat, and they don't have half the security measures they're supposed to have here either."

"Also Shadow Weaver got out at some point." Adora added.

Catra  grumbled. "Yeah, that too. I have an alternative route I could take if the front door was actually defended, but I think I'll just walk out that way."

"Catra, you'll be in more trouble if you do that, you know. If you just  wa i t for an hour there won't be any problems at all." Adora pleaded with her eyes as she left. "Just sit tight."

As soon as the door closed behind her Catra got to picking the lock.

"So you coming with me or will you wait for Adora?"

"I'll wait." 

Catra shrugged. "Suit yourself." The door  clicked open and she left her cell.

She put her ear to the door and heard how Adora and the officer walked up the stairs, peaked through the lock to see that no one was in the hallway, then picked that lock too. Sneaking up the stairs  s oundlessly wasn't a problem, and neither was getting past the one guard that sat between the staircase and the exit.

Once outside she made her way to the docks. She'd told Scorpia she'd break out in the morning so she and Entrapta were probably wa i ting for her already. There wasn't anything in particular she needed to do that day, they would take a break until two days later when they'd set sail again, but maybe Entrapta had something she wanted to do.

Or Scorpia, though Catra doubted that, Scorpia was the sort of person who spent her free time just talking with her friends, or help them with whatever they were doing. 

When she arrived she spotted Lonnie and some other crew members around.

"Did you inspect the ship?" Catra asked.

"Yes, it doesn't need any repairs."

"What about food? Did you order it already? You know we need that fruit thing Entrapta told us about."

"Yes, Catra, I've got it  handled. This isn't my first time preparing things for a stint on the seas, you know." As if to prove her statement she waved the checklist they always used, which had all the necessary things listed. Catra couldn't see how much had been checked off, but she supposed it didn't matter as long as Lonnie saw to it that everything would be prepared within a couple of days.

"Just checking."

Not too far away she spotted Scorpia and Entrapta, lifting her hand in a wave she left Lonnie to join her friends.

* * *

They'd spent the last maybe twenty minutes (Scorpia wasn't good at telling the time by the sun) since Catra joined them on one of Entraptas experiments. Catra had grabbed a small breakfast on the way and had been  idly munching on it while  passively following them around.

Scorpia wasn't exactly sure  _what_ they where doing, but it was fun regardless. Mostly she was carrying Entraptas things around while the smaller girl was  rambling about some animals and weather? Either way, Entrapta was clearly having a good time, which was the important thing.

"-wings so they must fly using some other mechanics. Now, most small birds  _do_ actually flap their wings quite a bit, but we're goi n g to use these  measurements to compare as a standard wing with other wings, like those of  seagulls or  eagles as ideal wings." Entrapta gestured wildly with her hair as they walked through the woods. When she wasn't using it to move, that is.

"So we're catching birds. Gotcha. Which birds are we catching? And how? We could try to chase them, but they're fast and my claws aren't good for catching small things." She snapped at the air with one hand to ilustrate the killing potential.

"I was thinking maybe Catra knows how to do it. Felines are notoriously good at it. Or maybe that was just smaller ones? I don't remember."

"Can you do it?" Catra didn't respond. "Hey, Catra, you listening?" Scorpia lightly nudged her best friend, one of them at least.

"Huh?" Catras eyes where empty, barely looking at them.

"I need a bird, a small one, do you think you could catch one for me?" Entrapta asked.

"Does it need to survive?" Catra still didn't look at either of them.

"No, but I'm not planing on disecting it so if it survives it's a bonus, I think."

"Alright." She climbed the nearest tree and disapeared in the branches. Catra seemed down. Distracted? Like she could use a hug.

"Entrapta?" Scorpia said.

"Yes?"

"I think something's wrong with Catra. She didn't even seem excited about hunting something! Usually she likes that sort of thing." 

"Hmmm," Entrapta tapped her chin with her hair, "I suppose you're right. Maybe that's because we're in Etheria?"

"But if she really hated it so much we could have just moved somewhere else instead of becoming pirates, or just not come back as often as we do."

"Well what if-" Catra dropped down infront of them, a little blue-bird in her hand.

"Catra! We were- I mean, like-" Scorpia didn't know what to say. She didn't want to lie or anything, and maybe Catra wouldn't absolutely  _hate_ talking about it, but she had hoped to be more subtle about it. Not that subtelty was her strong suit.

"Here." Catra held out the bird to Entrapta, who gladly took it, and started to examine it. Scorpia set down Entraptas stuff, just in case she'd need it. "So I... I saw Adora today. Or, she came to visit me in jail, she's probably still there doing paperwork to get me and Huntara released without any charges."

"Oh! Did you talk to her? Are you friends again!?" Entrapta jumped with hapiness. She probably thought everything had just magically resolved itself.

"Entrapta, that's... I mean you probably shouldn't say-" Catra  gestured for Scorpia to stop.

"It's fine. And, maybe." A small smile spread across her face. "I mean, no." She tried to cover her smile with a scowl. She wasn't  succeeding. "It doesn't work like that, but apparently Adora had decided that I never stopped being her friend, even during the war, so I- I don't know..."

"You should  apologize. You  apologized to me and Scorpia and we forgave you." Entrapta said, without looking up from the bird, using some tools to... Scorpia wasn't sure what she was doing but probably some sort of measurement.

"Yeah, but, I don't know... It's been so long, and Adora- She just brushed off those times I tried to kill her and, like, that was the only thing I think I have to apologi z e for really."

"Maybe you could just talk about it, without apologi zi ng, and if it goes well you can try to become friends again." Scorpia said. Catra turned around, looking up another tree.

"Do you need any more birds?"

"Maybe one or two more, not the same type though, and any bird you find here would do. After that you can go if you have somewhere to be. We could meet up again at the  bird cliffs. " Catra climbed up again.

* * *

Finding and catching two more birds didn't take too long, but it did give her time to think. Well, it gave her time away from Scorpia. Catra liked her friends, and talking did help, but at some point she needed to stop talking so she could think things through.

After leaving the birds with Entrapta she went back into town. She bought some bred, and for water...

She spotted Goatine, who had a water pouch on her hip.

"Hey Goatine!" She jogged up to her crew-mate. "Can I borrow your  water-pouch for a bit?"

"What for? If you want to use if for anything other than wate r or  meed I'll say no."

"Breakfast for Huntara, so water's fine." She held up the loaf she carried in her hand.

"Alright, no need to refill it then." She handed the almost full pouch to Catra, who jogged off towards the old Hord e base.

* * *

Getting in was no harder than getting out and soon enough she was at the wodden door. It was still unlocked, since she hadn't bothered to lock up after herself. She snuck in, past the second steel gate, then to the cell.

"Hey, Catra. Didn't expect you back."

"Eh, Goatine wanted me to bring you some breakfast." She tossed her the loaf of bread before turning back to the  entrance.

"No water?" Catra made her way up to the door.

"You'll get your water, I just want to lock up first." She reached into the lock to turn it back, didn't even need to pick it this time since she hadn't turned it all the way on her way out.

After locking up the gate she entered the cell, handed over the water and locked the cell door.

It didn't take long before She heard steps on the staircase, along with  A dora’s voice. They stopped outside of the wooden door, a n officer unlocked it, and in they came.

This time it  _was_ the officer from the night before, the one who  had  arrested them.

"Still here I see. Weren't you going to break out?" He said it with a smirk, as though Catra couldn't break out if she tried. Of course, she felt a base urge to throw it in his face that she  _had_ broken out already, and had then broken in again. 

Instead she said: "And why would I do that when you're going to release me all on your own?"

The guard unlocked the door, and out they went. The guard looked at Huntara.

"Hey, how'd you get bred?" 

Huntara popped the last bit into her mouth and, with her mouth still full said: "I don't know what you're talking about." To punctuate the statement she took a swig from Goatine's water -pouch .

"Well, the important thing is that there's no reason why they'd have to be in jail regardless, so they're free to go," Adora said. Catra snickered at her panicked expression, seems she was afraid that they'd left enough evidence to land back in trouble.

Instead the guard dropped it.


	3. Chapter 3

Catra and Adora walked out of the former Horde base. Neither having said a word since they left the underground prison.

"Well, I have some things to do so... See you later." Huntara left, going towards the north. There wasn't anything there really, just farms 'n shit. If you asked Catra she only headed that way to leave Adora and her alone, she'd probably double back towards the port to hang with Goatine and the rest of Catra's crew that she used to roll with.

"So. You broke back in." Catra shrugged.

"Goatine wanted me to bring her breakfast, so I did."

"She could have eaten when she got out, and you  _never_ go on erands for others."

"Yeah." Adora looked at her expectantly. "I'm trying to be a better friend these days, after what hap p ened with Scorpia and Entrapta." It wasn't a lie, not really, but that wasn't the reason she came back. She hadn't done it for Goatine, or even Huntara.

"They forgave you, right? Th ey’ re in your crew?"

"Yeah." Silence stretched between them as they walked towards the Bird Cliffs, neither really comfortable but both avoiding the subject that caused said feeling.

"So where're we going?"

"Cliffs. Entrapta's studying birds today so I'm probably going to have to capture a  seagull. "

"Cool, cool." Another bit of awkward silence.

"So you wanna be friends again or something?"

"Yes." Adoras eyes lit up as she answered, and a warm feeling spread in Catras s t omach. The two were  _not_ related.

"Alright then."

"Just like that?"

"Well I..." She wasn't 'over it', not really, but she wanted to just get past it alread y . "Can we talk about something else?"

"Sure. Wanna talk about what we've been up to since I left the Horde? Just catch up? Or is that a bad subject?"

"It's fine."

"So, for my part, I've spent my time mostly with Bow and Glimmer, even outside of missions." Catra tried not to frown when Adora mentioned her new friends."We play board games or have slumber parties sometimes. And since I kil l ed Prime we've been  busy cleaning up old Horde territory and rebuilding.

"How about yourself? I mean I know you're a pirate now, but is that all you do? what do you do on your spare time?"

"I... For starters Horde life was awful after you left. Shadow Weaver blamed me for you leaving which was about as far from the case as possible, I got saddled with Scorpia on a bunch of things and she liked me immediately, can't say the feeling was mutual.

"Like you already said we had a bit of a falling out, she and Entrapta disagreed with some of my plans, turns out they were right about everything, I apologi z ed and it was awful." Adora laughed a bit making Catras frown. Her pride still stung thinking about it, but it had been worth it. "We're friends now, though, spend our free time on either Entraptas projects or just talking. When I'm not with them I mostly exer c ise or take naps."

"Cool. I... I don't do well with alone time so unless I'm working I spend all my time with friends. Not  _just_ Bow and Glimmer, but mostly them.."

* * *

They kept talking as they walked and after a while Catra slowed down, then Adora slowed down, and eventually they stopped walking altogether. Catra climbed up a tree and relaxed on a branch while Adora sat under the tree and they kept talking.

It was working well, the whole not apologizing thing, but they'd have to do it eventually. They had to talk about how they hurt  each other.

Just not right then and there...

It was past noon when they  finally decided to walk the last bit of the way to the cliffs.

"Oh, hey Catra! Hey Adora!" Scorpia called when they go t close. "You friends again?"

"Yes. More importan t ly have you had lunch yet? I'm starving."

"Yes, actually. You where taking so long we figured you were already eating without us. But we did bring tiny snacks! Want some?" Entrapta held out her snacks to the both of them. Catra stuffed a  handful into her mouth while Adora carefully took one for herself.

"So, Catra told me you're catching birds today, what's that about?"

"Oh, I'm going to figure out how they fly today, or maybe some other day, either way I'm measuring them today! Isn't science exciting?" 

"Sure," Catra said, before  swallowing the  mouthful of tiny snacks, "Want me to catch a bird for you?"

"Yes, please. One of the ones who don't flap their wings much. Many would be better, but one at a time would probably be easiest. 

"When we have a  bunch of them we should probably go back and catch some more smaller birds to measure them, see if the trend of wing shapes holds, but we can do that later. We'll probably have to work some on this tomorrow, actually. Since ideally we'd capture several of each bird type and plot them on a graph comparing several wing characteristics against how often they flap them." 

Catra waited until Entrapta was done  rambling before she spoke. It was a thing she had started doing when she decided she'd be a better friend to her and Scorpia. Sometimes it was hard to follow, and sometimes she was too a n noyed to actually  _do_ it, but she tried.

"Sure thing. Me and Adora will need to eat later, and I want to hang out with her a bit today, but we can help catch birds for you. Right, Adora?" Adora gave an absent-minded nod, obviously thinking about something else.

"Hm? Yeah, we can help."

"Excellent!" Entrapta gave a little clap and started pulling out her tools from the boxes Scorpia had brought along.

"So you're hanging out with us today?" She heard  S corpia ask, but she didn't catch Arodas answer, since she was already climbing down the cliff to get to the birds.

These birds were a bit harder to catch since jumping at them mid flight would mean falling into the water. They were bigger too, making them harder to hold in one hand.

She tried just sneaking up on them, but of course they flew away. Getting close to their nest drew them back but. even if she killed them, she'd get hurt if she antagonized them too much, especially if she tried that with the eagles.

She backed off from the nest, abandoning that strategy for the moment, and climbed up above another nest instead, one with a bird in it. It was a seagull, she wanted to try it on more harmless birds first, and it hadn't noticed her.

The cliff was steep in that part, so when Catra let go of the cliff, barely pushing off of it, she fell without hitting any outcroppings on her way down. She quickly snatched the bird with one hand before clawing into the  cliff-side with her legs and her free hand.

She left gouges in the rock, but she was fine, didn't really hurt her hands or feet doing it... 

The seagul l was definitely trying to change that though. It didn't have talons so its kicks couldn't do much and it's pecks weren't much of a problem. She grabbed it by the head while it struggled for freedom, held its beak shut, pressed it to her chest, and used her elbow to keep it pinned there. Starting her  cumbersome climb up.

When She looked up she could see Entrapta bouncing in place, looking down at her. She kept climbing, the bird still  struggling for freedom.

"If you're so impatient you can grab the bird before I reach the top." She had barely finished the  sentence before Entraptas hair reached down and took the bird from her, freing her arm from holding the  struggling animal. Entrapta laughed as she ran back to her instruments and started measuring the wings.

"Hey, Catra? Scorpia went to fetch us some food, she said you'd be more helpful here than she would, so you should just keep catching birds." Catra, having reached the top of the cliff, shrugged.

"Alright. Wanna try it yourself?"

"I don't think I can lasso a bird." Catra gasped in mock-surprise.

"What? The perfect Adora, the mighty  S he- R a, hero of the rebellion, can't catch a single bird?

"Was it really that simple? All I had to do was send some birds to defeat you, instead of  cooking up elaborate schemes? Not that those didn't work." Adora laughed.

"Shut up! I can totally catch a bird, watch." She went into  S he- R a mode, changed her sword into a rope then attached it to a tree. Then Adora jumped down the cliff. Catra was quick to follow.

Not because she was afra i d that Adora would fall,  S he- R a's magic rope wouldn't break and neither would Adoras grip on it, but just to get a better view of her when Adora, big as she was, failed to get close before the birds took flight.

* * *

When Scorpia eventually arrived with their lunch Catra had caught three more birds, one  eagle and two Albatrosses, one of which escaped before she reached the top. Adora hadn't even caught one.  The birds Entrapta was done with as well as the one she hadn’t gotten to yet were in cages.

"Don't worry Adora, I'm sure you'll catch the next one, right Catra?" Scorpia said when they sad down to eat.

"I'm not so sure, I might catch another two or three before that happens..." Adora wasn't smiling. "Hey, want some help?"

"I don't need  _your help_ catching a stupid bird." Right. Catra had definitely hit a nerve.

"Not like that Adora, I just meant that I can help you improve your hunting strategy. You're approaching this conflict like you do any other battle, by going straight for the enemy. It works well enough with larger, slower targets, but in this case you should consider your enemies psychology, is all." Adora looked at her  skeptically.

"Okaaaay, go on."

"Attack their nests and they won't run away, your she-ra form shouldn't be hurt by their claws and beaks so all you have to do is jump at them when they try to attack. Then just grab 'em with your free arm and hold them against your body as you climb back up." Catra gave a light smirk at how contemplative Adora looked.

"Yeah... Yeah, that might work! Thanks Catra." Adora gave her a big smile, one she hadn't seen for over three years, since Adora left the Horde, and it stirred her stomach.

She turned her attention to the pot in Scorpias claws.

"What's in there?"

"Oh! I went to  the Food Bar and got you some rice and meat chunks with sauce." She opened the pot. "Oh, and some salad." Inside the pot the three groups were kept  separate , the rice serving as a barrier between the sauce and the salad, which was made of several fruits and vegetables, and a single spoon to take out the food with. Scorpia had also brought two plates, two forks, and two spoons from their ship.

Catra grabbed one of each then took a serving of rice and meat with a fair  amount of sauce, leaving the vegetables were they where.

"Catra, you need to eat some vegetables," Adora said, falling back into old habits.

"No I don't, I'm a cat! Cats don't eat vegetables!" Adora held a  spoonful of vegetables out to her, but Cata refused to let it anywhere near her plate. It was childish, she knew, but she really didn't like their taste, and she  _ really _ liked the way it made Adora laugh.

"She's right, you know." Both Catra and Adora suddenly stopped. "Not that that necessarily applies to her, but many cats actually don't eat plants, at least not in large quantities, so who knows.

"If you know of any other cat-people on Etheria you could ask them, they'd probably know. Or maybe not, since most Etherians haven't studied food s c ience and it'd have to be a cat-people specific study." Catra smiled wide.

"See, I don't need vegetables, Entrapta agre e s with me!"

"No she said you  _might_ not need it, totally different." Adora reached out with the spoon again, this time Catra stood up to run away with her veggie-free plate.

"Probably. She  _probably_ doesn't need the same vegetables as everybody else."

"Ah-hah!" Catra triumphantly pointed at Adora with her fork.

"But just in case maybe she should eat them regardless. If she needs them, it'd be bad not to eat it, and if it's poison o us it's probably in small enough quantities to not matter, considering she's eaten them in the past."

"See. Wait, poison o us!?" Adora's face lost some of its normal redness.

"Oh, don't worry. We constantly have small amounts of poison in our system, most of it gets expelled with our pee, no problem."

"Oh. Okay then." Adora still wasn't as upbeat as she had been just seconds before. "I'll see if I can find something on what the  Magicat used to eat." She looked down at the spoon of vegetables.

Catra stuck her plate under the spoon. "Just one spoon-full today." Adora  no dded then turned the spoon, letting it's contents fall into Catras plate.

* * *

The mood didn't stay somber the whole meal, but the  knowledge that Catra might actually get problems from eating veggies did put a damper on the mood for a while. 

Entrapta mostly went back to her  measurements , not that she had really stopped doing them even when she was talking about other things, but she didn't pay much attention to them after that.

Scorpia, on the other hand, was a lot of fun. She joked around, was nice and made a genuine effort to make Adora feel included and welcome in the 'Super Pal Tr i o hang-out'.

When they were done eating Entrapta was done measuring everything she could from the birds they had caught so they went to catch some more. Adora tried Catra's plan, and it worked really well, she caught a bird on her first try and everything.

"See, I knew you could do it!" Scorpia hugged her as soon as she had reached the top, before she could pass the eagle along to Entrapta even.

"Y-Yeah, thanks. What is going on?"

"She's a huger," Catra informed her.

"Oh, gosh, yes. I just love  hugs. They're so nice, and comfy, and warm, and they're great for making friends. Did you know that the first thing me and Catra did when we met was hug each other? Well, She didn't really hug me, it was more of a one sided thing, since, you know, she isn't really as much of a huger as I am, but it brought us together you know?"

"Actually it was your  insistence on being my friend that did it, not hugs," Catra said.

Entrapta, who didn't have any more birds to measure, came up to Scorpia from behind and hugged her.

"Entrapta?" Scorpia's eyes were shining with happiness, 

"I don't hug you enough."

"Dawww." Slowly, while Entrapta kept hugging Scorpia, her hair moved in between Scorpia and Adora, fished out the eagle, and held it above her.

It wasn't the same kind Catra had caught earlier, but a dif f erent one, so it should count.

Entrapta ended the hug and, with a slightly  maniacal laughter, she ran back to her makeshift lab.

Scorpia sighed. "That is my best friend right there. Always thinking about science and 'advancing Etherians understanding of the world and universe at large'."

* * *

Catra And Adora ended up spending most of their afternoon catching birds for Entrapta and talking with each other. She talked with Scorpia and Entrapta too, and they talked with Adora, but mostly it was just the two of them, 'catching up'.

They talked about almost everything, almost anything that came to mind. There were a few topics they avoided, nobody mentioned the war for instance, especially fighting each other. Catra also avoided the subject of whatever her stomach was doing and how much she wanted to sit in Adora's lap and have her scra t ch behind Catra's ear.

Eventually Entrapta packed up for the night, every measured bird was marked then released back into the wild, and they went back to port to put away Entraptas stuff.

Once that was done they headed to The hidden mushroom, her  favorite tavern.

"-And then Mermista made seaweed- and coral-based decorations, they smelled awful!" Adora laughed. It made Catras stomach curl form how nice it was.

"Don't your princesses have, like, people for that sort of thing? Why would she make it herself?" Catra asked.

"She wanted to help. Plus, that wasn't _her_ coronation so technically, it this case, she was Glimmer's 'people'."

"Did that ruin the party? That should have ruined the party, right?" Entrapta asked as a blue haired serving girl came to take their orders.

"No, Perfuma ended up helping her and she made sure it smelled nice."

"I love a happy ending." Scorpia turned to the serving girl. "I'll have the buffalo steak."

"Breaded bass 'n chipps." Catra didn't look up as she ordered, instead turning to Entrapta.

"I'll have some tiny sandwiches please."

"I don't think we serve that here." The serving girl said.

"If you make a  sandwich , cut it in a three by three grid, then stick a toothpick in each piece, we'll pay half again the price for her food." Catra looked up this time,  receiving a tiny nod in response.

"I'll also have the buffalo steak."Adora said with a smile, turning back to the group. "Anyway, after the  coronations we've been  busy rebuilding and fixing things.

"The things you steal from the Horde have actually been really useful to us. I never even realized just  _how_ many things we only get from them."

"Yeah. We have resources and consumers but no means of production!" Entrapta gave an excited little clap. "It's a gr e at way to make people  dependent on you. Prime really knew his stuff, I should make a note of it."

"So. Do you want the..." Catra turned to Entrapta. "What did you call it?"

"Means of production?"

"Yeah, that. Do you want them? You and the princesses." Adora paused, confusion clear.

"Yes?"

"It'd put us out of business . .." Catra smirked as a plan rapidly formed in her mind,  scheming once again. "But if you give us a decent retirement plan we can get it for you."

"You can?" Adora asked.

"We can?" Scorpia echoed.

"Sure. All we need is for Entrapta to learn how they do it in Horde central. Then she can copy it, right?" She turned to Entrapta, confident that her friend would confirm it.

"Well, ideally I'd get a look at the blueprints and get to see it all in action, but I think I could do it with either of the two for most things... So, sure."

"That's a really g r eat idea Catra! I'll make sure to tell the others as soon as possible so we can help." With Adora helping her she'd no doubt  succeed in manipulating the princesses all she had to do was set things up so that they'd be in a strong negotiating position...

"It's not going to be cheap and we have some demands on top of that, but I'll hear an offer before I list them. And if they think that they can just do it themselves, I'd like you to point out that almost no-one has the ship and know-how to navigate on the open ocean, far from the Etherian continent, and It'll be a hundred times harder to steal their technology without Entrapta on your team." Catra said, defending against arguments the princesses would no doubt make when Adora tells them of her plan.

"Catra... " Adora gently took her hand. "I know it'd be bad for your  business and all, but can't you just be nice and help us without making it expensive? Aren't we friends? And it's for a good cause." 

"Even if I wanted to, I have a whole crew to think of. We actually share the profit  fairly evenly between us so they'd loose a gr e at income  sours if we do this. Not to mention that there's a lot more risk involved in stealing from Horde central when compared to a Horde ship. Heck, even a fleet is less of a risk!

"So, no. I can't make it cheap, even for you."  _Plus starting off expensive allows me to negotiate down in_ _favor_ _of political power or economic control of the 'means of production', on top of a full pardon for any 'crimes'_ _committed_ _by ex-Horde during the war._

"You've... become really considerate of others, haven't you." Adora asked, sincere.

"What! Have not!" Adora laughed,  prompting Catra to punch her arm before she also started laughing.

* * *

Towards the end of their evening out both Catra and Adora got slightly drunk, Catra after several drinks and Adora after just one. The difference in alcohol tolerance was astounding and it was probably something she should look into if she ever got the time. Not for just those two but people in general.

Drunk as they were they  eventually leaned heavily on each other, Catra having been the one to initiate the contact, and they never stopped. She could be wrong but it seamed to Entrapta like Catra might bave been stroking some of Adoras more  prominent muscles for a while before both of them fell asleep, holding each other close.

Judging by Scorpias reaction this was something 'cute' though some other  patrons to the bar seemed to  disagree , possible bias from Scorpia was judged to be likely. This conclusion was reached by comparing what was usually considered  aesthetically pleasing, s u ch as  symmetry or specific proportions with the  jumbled mess of limbs that was their friend and her obvious crush.

Entrapta payed for their food while Scorpia picked up their companions, rousing Catra from her slumber, but the feline quickly cu d dled back into Adora after Scorpia  whispered something to her.

Together they dropped their captain and her romantic interest off in a room they rented for that night and the following, before making their way to their own room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really love reading coments, so if you have anything to say, maybe a favourite part of the story so far or something you hate about it you want to share, feel free to tell me. All feedback helps.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lizara is the name I gave the girl the wiki calls "Four-armed Lizard Girl"

Sharing a bed with Adora was always one of Catra's favorite things to do. She was more comfortable that way and the world of her dreams always smelled of her blue-eyed friend. She also had never had a nightmare when they shared a bed, but that might be because they could only share one if Shadow Weaver wasn't checking in on them in the evening.

She snuggled in closer to Adora, having missed the experience for the past three years. Ever since Adora had defected... and they had become enemies... and then after that Catra left to become a pirate... _Must be_ _dreaming_ _then._

As she cuddled with dream-Adora she thought back to the previous day, she had gotten to spend most of her day, well into the evening, with the real Adora and they had become friends again. And then when they separated...

"Ah!" Catra Shrieked as she leapt out of the bed.

Still lying there Adora roused from her sleep, and thank god both she and Catra were fully dressed, making some groggy sounds before she looked around the room. "Hey Catra. Where are we? And why are we here?"

Catra looked around the room. It was rather small, and smelled funny, like wet cloth that hadn’t been allowed to dry properly but hadn’t developed visible mold yet. There was just one bed and a small dresser along one wall with a small window at the end of the elongated room. There was also an oil lamp on the dresser but that was it, nothing else.

"Hidden mushroom I think, it's where I usually sleep when we dock in the Fright Zone and their rooms look like this. Do you remember what happened last night?"

"We ate dinner together with Entrapta and Scorpia, then you convinced me to have some mead, then it gets blurry." Adora sat up and Groaned as she stretched her back.

"Yeah, I think I had some more drinks after that but I don't remember getting a room here." Catra poked her head out of the door and listened, hearing familiar snoring not too far down the hall. She followed it to Scorpia's room and 'knocked'.

"Wah!" The voice was shrill, Entrapta's, and was followed by a thud as she landed on the floor. "I'm okay!" A few seconds later Entrapta opened the door. "Hi Catra." Entrapta's room looked more or less like Catra's except it was slightly larger and had two beds, one on either side of the room, and a larger dresser, but still only one.

"Hey Entrapta." Catra entered the room. "Why was I sharing a bed with Adora?" Scorpia streached on her bed while Adora followed Catra inside.

"Oh! You two passed out after drinking last night so we gave you a place to sleep!" Entrapta said.

"I would have pulled you appart, except you where holding eachother so tightly, so I figured it'd be fine," Scorpia added. "It was really cute." Catra's face grew hot.

* * *

The four of them were eating breakfast in the tavern downstairs. She and Entrapta had taken their seats first, sitting down on the same side of a four seat table, Catra and Adora gingerly sat down on the opposite side.

It hadn't been the same the night before, they had been super comfortable the whole time, but that morning they seemed to try to keep their distance. Scorpia was sure they'd get over it.

"So, did you sleep well?"

Catra's eyes narrowed while Adora looked away, with a light blush on her face. "Not a good topic, Scorpia." Catra's voice was aggressive and her stare hard, like if Scorpia had done something wrong.

The group fell silent, only Entrapta made any sound at all while she hummed to herself.

"So I was thinking we'd go to the mountains today, catch some more birds. If my hypothesis is correct the birds who don't flap their wings a lot should have more curved wings. Something about the wings shape might make them fly better, so I'm going to figure out what could cause it and then make an experiment to test it on the ship tomorrow."

Catra wasn't paying attention and Adora wasn't even looking in any of their direction, instead she was looking off to the bar, probably waiting for serving girl.

"So what are you going to do Adora?" Apparently Scorpia had talked too suddenly since Adora nearly fell out of her chair before looking back at her.

After a second she answered. "Work? I'll have to talk with the princesses about Catra's idea then it's back to helping keep the order."

"What is it you do, exactly? Now that you're not fighting us I mean. Do you just do what normal guards do? Catch criminals and stuff?" Entrapta asked.

Adora sighed, frowned. "Mostly I just visit all outposts and villages, talk to people, hear if they have something to complain about, and if they do I talk to whoever’s in charge about fixing it."

"Sounds fun." While Catra absently picked at her claws Adora balled her hands.

"Comon Catra, I'm sure Adora thinks it's plenty fun, right?" Scorpia said trying to lift Adoras mood.

"Not really. It's necessary, but almost anyone could do it. Really my job is to appear as She-Ra and 'inspire' people."

"Oooh, you're a propaganda worker." Entrapta clapped her hands giddily for a second.

"You're making it sound even less important than it is, but i guess."

They kept talking while eating food, and even when they were done they sat there talking for a while. Scorpia tried to make Adora, Catra and their relationship the subject, but was shot down whenever she got close to succeeding, but she didn’t give up.

Until she did.

* * *

Breakfast wasn't anything special. Nothing near as fancy as she got in Brightmoon but it was nice, if awkward. Spending time with Catra again was... fun. Her friends had accepted Adora without complaint which was good. Adora couldn't see her own friends doing the same with Catra, but at least Catra’s friends liked her. In fact even after a whole day together Scopria still seemed interested in getting to know her better and even Entrapta went out of her way to include her.

When they were done eating the all headed out. Catra and her friends went north, planing on going past the fields to the mountains beyond, Adora meanwhile needed to head back to Bright Moon and her job, which meant going north to the main road then west, so they were going the same way for at least a while.

"Adora!" Glimmer appeared just in front of her enveloping her in a quick hug before she held the taller girl at an arms length. "Where were you?"

"I was with Catra, didn't Swift Wind tell you? We were helping Entrapta with her research." Adora pointed to the young scientist, Glimmer didn't look at her.

"I was worried! Catra could have killed you for all we knew!"

"Hey!" Catra barred her teeth.

"She wouldn't," Adora said.

"You don't _know_ that. She's the enemy, she's evil, and you can't trust her no matter what! "

"Don't act like you're better than me." Catra pushed her way partly between Adora and Glimmer, snarling at the shorter princess.

Glimmer scoffed loudly. "You _don't_ think I'm better? I'm one of the good guys, my people love me, and I've never attacked civilians.!"Glimmer threw her hands up.

"Sure, you're one of the 'good guys', so what! People aren't free with you in charge either, so what's the difference compared to having Hordak in charge? Heck, _I'm_ much better at being in charge than either of you."

"What!?" Glimmer was seething with anger. "In _what_ way could you possibly be better than me?"

"Well for one," Catra rounded Glimmer, waving her tail close to the princess, but without touching her, "having magic isn't necessary for leaders, and that's the only thing you have going for you. I actually _have_ leadership skills, I can strategize better than you any day, I can convince people to follow me for my merits alone, and unlike _someone_ I don't live like royalty while some of my people don't have homes."

"Your 'people' are the twenty or so ones who work for you, I run a whole country!" Glimmer's face was red with anger and her hands glowed slightly as she balled them.

"Please. I ran the Horde just fine, and without the wealth disparity your country has."

Adora stepped in front of Glimmer, and tried to pull her away. "Calm down. Please,” She looked at Catra, “both of you."

"Horde living standards were shit!" Glimmer shouted, waving fist above her head.

"I said calm down!" Adora put her hands on Glimmers shoulders and turned her around. "You don't have to keep arguing about this. Let's just go back to work now, Glimmer, okay?"

Glimmer resisted for a second then sighed. "Okay."

"See you later Catra."

Catra's eyes lit up as she looked at Adora. "Alright." She wore a big smile as she turned to her friends who had been silent the whole time.

* * *

After they had split up with Adora they rand into Goatine and later Lonie. Catra told them to gather as many people from their crew as possible at the Hidden Mushroom by sundown before she kept going north with Entrapta.

She, Entrapta, and Scorpia took a carriage to the mountains. The view was nice enough usually, but she didn't look at it that day. Instead she focused on her plans for the evening and what to do after the mission had succeed.

* * *

Scorpia wished she was as good as Catra at catching birds. Not because it was particularly useful or because she was competitive, 'cause she really wasn't, but because then _she_ could help Entrapta with her research, leaving Catra free to spend her day with Adora.

She figured that was why Catra couldn't focus on the ride over, she must have been thinking about her crush, and how much she misses her, and how much she wants to be with her and kiss her... Being in love was great.

At first Scorpia may, maybe, have had a tiny winy crush on Catra, but that hadn't lasted very long and instead they had become great friends. One might even say super-pals. And then Entrapta had joined them and they had become the Super Pal Trio.

"So what's your plan with Adora?"

"What?" Catra looked up from the bush she had been staring at. After she had caught some birds for Entrapta she had sat bellow a tree, zoning out.

"Adora. How are you going to win her heart, or confess your feelings? You're not just going to stay quiet about it are you?"

"I- I don't know. I'm kind of in the middle of something here." Catra looked back to her bush for less than a second before Entrapta called out to her.

"I need another bird, Catra!"

"I..." Catra looked behind her, away from Entrapta and her measuring station and into the wild. "I'll be right back." And then she was gone. Running off into the more sparse forresty bits of the mountain.

It didn't take too long before she came back, handed Entrapta the bird, and... ran off again. It took until her third time before she stopped and they could talk again.

"I have some ideas for what you could do. They're not great but I figure we can workshop them until one of them's good enough." Catra stared at her with a serious expression.

"Scorpia listen, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but you need to stop and let me focus on my own thing right now."

"Oh."

She left Catra alone after that. She... Catra must have had something really important to think about. Yeah, nothing else. Not like she disliked Scorpia or something.

* * *

Catra entered the tavern as the sun was setting. Not everyone had made it, but that was to be expected since some of them had gone to other regions of Etheria, like the Crimson Wastes, to visit friends or family. Still, a surprisingly large portion of the crew was there.

"So what's up, Catra?" Lonie asked

"Well I've contacted the princesses about a job. It's a big one, we'd be risking our lives, but they'll really want it so we can probably extort them for whatever we want.

"There's a plan, and I won't tell you exactly what's going on while we're still negotiating, but if anyone here has something they'd like to demand from the princesses, I'd suggest you tell me now. if it's about money the idea is already that we should be able to retire after this mission."

Kyle looked like he might piss his pants, but the others were mostly happy with the news. The princesses weren't popular amongst her crew, which was mostly comprised of former Horde soldiers, so the thought of extorting them lifted everyones spirits. A few, Lonnie, Rogelio, and Lizara in particular were more skeptical, but they held their tongues.

"I think I want Mermista to swim through the sewers again," someone said, and throughout the room she could hear some cheers of agreement.

"I want some crown jewels."

A few other suggestions were heard, most of them followed by agreement from others, but mostly the room was silent. There really wasn't much that the princesses had that the Horde didn't have better versions of. Of course the horde wasn't around anymore, but they had had plenty of opportunities to steal anything they might want.

"I want them to sell their castles and use that money to pay for our pensions."

"So you want to embarrass them, take away their symbols of authority, and generally make them more like us, right?" Catra got a roar of agreement and some applause in response.

"So that's it?" Lonie asked. "We all had to gather for this?" She had her arms crossed as she skeptically eyed Catra.

"I just wanted to make sure we got the most out of the opportunity, since this will probably be the only time we'll ever get to ask anything from the princesses." _And I can justify some of my demands as_ our _demands now._

"Well I thought it was great. You were super cool talking about how we'll make them do whatever we want," Scorpia said.

Catra smiled, laughing to herself at just how smoothly her plans were going.

"Ummm.. Catra? What _are_ we going to make them do?" Scorpia, who had been happy just a second earlier seemed to have grown worried.

"I haven't figured out exactly what I'll ask yet, but whatever it is, it'll help me mess with them later, take away their power or give me some way to control what changes happen."

"I thought you were through with this whole power hunger thing. Wasn't that what led you to all your problems during the way?" Lonie asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Wasn't it being heartbroken over Adora leaving?" Scorpia scratched her head lightly while Catra felt her face heat up.

"Oh, how about a lack of consideration for the wider social impact of her actions and those of the empire she sided with.

"Even disregarding empathy the Horde empire was, in many ways, the worse option since even for those on top risked losing everything, as Catra herself proved when she got rid of Shadow Weaver." Scorpia and Lonie both stared at Entrapta.

"You're one to talk," Catra said.

"So anyway, Catra, why do you want to screw over the princesses? Aren't they Adora’s friends?" Scorpia asked.

"Isn't that the reason?"

"I..." Catra's mind trailed off. Lonie was wrong. She was over her jealousy, but knowing that didn't help her pinpoint the reason why she wanted to mess with them. Maybe because they thought they were better than her? Or because they're authority figures? Catra _had_ always disliked them, at least when they 'had authority over her'. Too much like Shadow Weaver.

* * *

Scorpia's eyebrows were furrowed as she looked to Catra. Lonie wasn't sure of exactly what was going on but from the taller girls expression she guessed that they might have fought.

She nudged Scorpia with her elbow. "Can we talk? Alone?"

"Oh. Sure, what's up?" Scorpia smiled wide as they went off to sit at a small table.

"I don't know, what _is_ up? You and Catra have a fight?" Scorpia's face fell as she scratched the back of her head.

"I'm not sure. We had fun yesterday, we helped Entrapta with her science and Catra made up with Adora so all four of us hung out together. Then since this morning she's been acting strange. one moment everything's fine then the next thing I know she's angry at me."

"Have you tried asking her?" Lonie rested her head in her hand.

"Not really, no."

"Did it happen whenever you talked about Adora?"

It took Scorpia a while before she answered. "I think so? How did you know?"

"Because Catra's always been that way about Adora, used to be the only thing she’d get emotional over. So what did you say?"

"Nothing. I've just been trying to help them become a couple."

Lonie narrowed her eyes. "... Seriously? And you don't see what's wrong with that?"

"What are you talking about, there's nothing wrong with helping them is there?"

"Yeah, except that maybe Adora's in a relationship and you just don't know it." Scorpia's face grew panicked. "Not to mention that we're leaving tomorrow and we'll be gone for at least a month, probably more, and there's a chance we might die so it might not be the best time to get a girlfriend."

"I..."

"Also, have you even considered what Catra wants?"

"What do you mean? She's..." Scorpia didn't say it, but it was obvious what she meant. Catra's in love with Adora.

"She misses Adora. She'd probably be happy if they started dating but right now I'm guessing she just wants her friend back and confessing her feelings might ruin the fragile state their relationship is in right now."

Scorpia looked down at her claws, tapping them against each other. “So you think I messed up?”

Lonie smiled as gently as she could. “I didn’t say _that_ , at least not with that connotation, but maybe you should stop to think what Catra wants from you, rather than just in general, yeah?”

Scorpia nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the story so far. Also next chapter will probably be the last one I write for this story, so look foreward to it!


	5. Chapter 5

When Catra was done eating dinner she noticed Adora loitering near the tavern. It had been by accident, really, she was spacing out and had happened to be looking out the window at the right angle, but she didn't let it get wasted. 

She snuck up behind the taller girl and, from only ten  centimeters away, said: "Hey Adora." 

With a  startled yelp Adora jumped away from her and spun around, revealing her very red face. The blush  disappeared quickly as Adora calmed down, but there was no doubt that it had been there, and that Catra had caused it.

The thought widened Catra’s smile.

"Hi Catra," Adora gave her an awkward little wave, "I was looking for you."

"You could have just come in, you knew I had a room there."

"I... I wasn't sure if the room was for one night only, if they’d gotten it because we passed out." Catra could feel her own face heat up, happy as always that her fur mostly hid it, and happier still that Adora's blush had returned. "I talked to the other princesses. They don't really want to pay you all that much but they're considering it, mostly because of what you said about Entrapta and how they can't do it without her.

"I think Glimmer's the most opposed to it but Bow thinks it's a good idea, so you might have a good chance at getting what you want."

"Did they offer anything else?"

"Well they mentioned using a pardon to your war-crimes as  bargaining chip, but nothing else." Fury licked at Catras mind. She had wanted them to do it, had baited Sparkles with it even, but just the idea that they thought she had done  _anything_ that needed their pardon made her mad.

She let it go. she leaned against Adora's arm. "Is that right..." Pushing off she started  circling Adora, letting her tail brush lightly against the taller girl as she did so. "Well, they're gonna have to do better than that."

"Catra..."

"What? The crew wants more than just money for this. We'd be risking our lives doing this, so is it any surprise that it'll take more than just giving us the money we'd earn if we didn't do it." Adora frowned. Catra didn't want things to be hard between them, but she didn't have much  choice in the matter, her goals depended on it.

* * *

Adora called her horse over and they rode off in silence, Adora  in front and Catra behind. The horse talked for a while, Catra wasn't really listening to it but she noticed that Adora didn't respond and eventually the horse shut up. 

"Catra?" Adora broke their silence.

"Yeah?"

"Do you really think the princesses are no better than the Horde?"

"I don't know..." She rested her head on Adora's  shoulder blade. "I mean, ignoring Prime for now, when you first left it was about attacking innocent civilians. I said it didn't matter because soon we'd be running things, and I was right, you left but it didn't take long before I was in charge and we stopped randomly attacking civilians.

"And sure, living conditions weren't the best for us, but with time we could have fixed that, right? Not like things  immediately got better after the Horde fell  apart. "

"We're  _still_ working on it." Adora sighed. "But people are more free with the princesses in charge, so it was still worth it." 

"For now, sure. What about when their kids are in charge? Or their  grand kids ? The system they work on is the same as the Horde one, 'someone's born into power and can do whatever they want with it'." A  system like that doesn't help anyone other than the S h adow Weavers of the world. Her arms Tightened around Adora.

"I'm sorry."

"You're what? Why?"  She had no idea why Adora was suddenly apologizing, but it wasn’t worth interrupting her to find out.

"I hurt you, when I left and afterwards, even if I didn't mean to. I... I'm sorry I couldn't stay with you."

"Yeah. It's fine though, can't always have everything," Catra took a breath, "or the only thing that matters," she  mumbled. "I've accepted that I'm not the most important person in your life anymore."

"That's.. um, good?"

"I'm not really sorry about what I did though. Some of it was shitty, sure, but it usually doubled as me trying to win the war, and it was working too."

"Heh, yeah. You were a really though opponent." Adora leaned back into her and looked up with a bright smile on her face. Catra smiled back.

"Though doesn't even begin to describe it. I'd've won the war if Prime had let me."

"I don't know about that..." Catra leveled a stare at Adoras neck. "Well, maybe."

Their conversation died down for a while, allowing Catra a moment to think. Think about their childhood, where it all went wrong...

"I am sorry about attacking civilians though."

"Really?!" Adora turned ar ound to  look her in the eyes.

"I can't remember them or anything, but yeah? Sometimes I think about it and it just seems shitty, doesn't feel good you know?

"I'm not sure if I'd do things any differently now though. Maybe I'd have usurped Shadow Weaver sooner? See if I could just take complete control of the Fright Zone then declare peace?

"Probably not, though." She smiled weakly. In that moment she hated herself slightly, and not only because what she said was the truth.

"Yea h, it's tough being in that situation... You can want everything right and still not do it."

"Yeah."

"But now  everything’s better now, right?" Adora's forced optimism was enough to give people whiplash sometimes, even if you were used to it, this was almost one of those moments. Catra missed them, even if it wasn't the  healthiest way to deal with negativity.

"Is it? Your friends are trying to hold normal acts of war against me, as though they were against the law. How can they demand that the Horde follows their laws and think that's fair? By that logic it'd be illegal to  declare war on them in the first place."

"I don't know about normal... You just said even you thought it was 'shitty' to attack civilians."

"But if I hadn't I'd be court-martialed, I'd have broken Horde law to follow princess law."

"Yeah, I can see how that's unreasonable." Catra felt sick to her stomach. What she was doing was tough, but ultimately for the best, right?

* * *

They eventually moved on from the heavy depressing war topics to the more lighthearted topic of everyday situations. Like how Lonnie had apparently become Catras second in co m mand, which surprised Adora since they had never really gotten along back in the day.

After they arrived Adora showed Catra the way to what had used to be the war room but now was just another meeting room. Inside were all the princesses except Entrapta and Scorpia, who technically still counted and together owned  t he  former ‘ Horde  territories ', the only land in Etheria beside the Crimson Waste that no royal held a claim to.

"Let’s get down to  business , shall we." Glimmer said.

"Sure. We're leaving in the morning so we only have tonight to either make a deal or leave it for a couple of months." Catra said and the reminder that she wouldn't see Catra for a few months stung in her heart.

"Seriously?" Mermista groaned.

"Or you can pay us upfront for the time you're wasting while my crew lazes about in port. Up to you." 

"So what are your demands?" Netossa asked. Her face was completely expressionless in a way Adora only saw  once  whe n  she had been too sick to work, and no other princess had been around to take her place.

"Enough money to retire  my whole crew, full control over how the inventions are used and that you step down as monarchs." Catra was picking at her nails letting her tail da nce beside her. Adora wasn't used to  seeing it anymore, and she'd never been good at that sort of thing, but she could tell it was forced.

"What!?" Glimmer shouted, her face contorted in angry spite. This was worse than anything even Shadow Weaver had caused, it was something only Catra had ever gotten out of her. "There is no way that we'll ever agree to that!"

"Catra...please..." Adora pleaded.

* * *

Catra smi r ked as she tried her best to ignore her childhood friends pleading expression, any show of weakness at that moment could force her to concede more than she had to. 

"Why don't you sit down for now..." The flowery princess said. Catra hopped into the fancy chair, with her back against an armrest and her  legs over the other.

"So there's no way you'll get all that, but we might think about letting you set a few rules  _if_ you drop the last demand," the silver haired one said.

"Not gonna drop it, but I'll consider giving you some control over how you abandon your thrones." Catra said.

"Why do you  even want them to do that?" the arrow boy, Bow? said. "You didn't even ask them to give it to you." 

"That's right, so how d o you want it?" Catra wi s hed it would be easy to make them consider it seriously, that way they might understand...

"Not at all, obviously." The water princess seemed bored, like she'd been forced to attend the meting. Maybe she was.

"Yeah, I'm gonna be a great ruler!" the little one said.

"Just hypothetically then."  _So long as you really consider it._

"We could just give them to someone else, right? Someone we trust?" The flower princess seemed naive, how had she never noticed before?

"Sure, crown some ra n do and hope the y 'll be benevolent with their absolute authority..." Catra said, then she smirked. "Not like Adora would have picked me for that a few years ago or something."

Everyone was silent. No one there, other than Adora, liked her so the message should be clear.

" That’ s why it’s such a bad idea." Bow said. 

"But what about your  grand-kids ?" Adora said. It stung in her chest, just how well things were going. How right she’d been to do  what she had done .

" Grand-kids ?" The little girl made a disgusted face. "I don't want any kids at all!"

"You don't know if they'll be any better than just some random person, they could be just as bad as Hordak even!" Adora looked worried.

"Relax, that's not gonna happen. We're gonna raise our kids right and they'll do the same to theirs," Sparkles said. 

"Unless one of them becomes an orphan and gets raised by someone who doesn't have the best interest of the people in mind," Catra said.

"What do you want us to say!” Sparkles shouted. “That there isn't a way for it to work forever so we should just give up now?!" Making her angry like that, so angry that her face turned completely red, was really fun!

"Find a better way then." She shrugged.

Before Sparkles could start shouting again Bow stepped in. "How about we just move on to the next subject for now?"

"You mean how she wants to  control how we use the machines she's selling to us?" the water princess said and it was the straw that broke the camels back.

Sparkles freaked out.

* * *

They had to take a short break to let Sparkles, Glimmer, calm down. She and Adora had gone off, down a random hall, on a stroll through the castle.

"Catra, could you maybe try to not provoke Glimmer any more than you already have?" Adora asked. 

Catra couldn't hold in her laughter anymore. She knew Adora wouldn't be happy about it, but at that moment it didn't matter. Much.

"Sorry, it's just too funny! Did you see her face when water princess mentioned my other demands? Priceless!" 

"Why do you even have demands like that?" 

Catra looked, really looked, at her friend. Adora wasn't happy, obviously. She hadn't really expected her to  _be_ happy, but Adora was  _frustrated_ , like if she had done something wrong again. Even when everything she was doing was...

"I have a plan," Catra said. "It isn't supposed to make me their friend, they're probably even gonna hate me, but that's fine.

"When I first became a pirate I didn't like our  system either, and the risk of losing everything I had built sucked, but it prevented any mutiny so I accepted it.

"Like, even if they had mutinied so long as both Scorpia and Entrapta were siding with me th e y wouldn't have posed a threat, but just the tree of us aren't enough to man the ship, much less bully the Horde into giving up their resources peacefully." Catra said.

"What does that have to do with your demands?" Adora leaned forward to get a better look at Catras face.

"Everything, nothing. Ultimately my demands should mean that both the kingdoms and whoever uses the inventions we steal work on the same system my crew works on. We share the profits  fairly evenly and at any non-emergency moment I can be replaced if my crew doesn't trust me with a majority vote. It also has nothing to do with it because my plans for when I retire is to just keep messing with people. 

"I've realized that what I hate the most is for things to stay the same. I got bored with just training in our cadet days so I caused trouble, when I became a force captain the constant  scheming made things continuo u sly change which was fun until I ended up in Horde Central where nothing ever changed.

"If I make it so that the princesses risk loosing everything if the population starts hating them, or just liking someone else more, then I can  scheme against them again, which should be fun." A giggle  bubbled up from her throat. By the time Catra had opened her eyes Adoras frown was set deep.

"Why are you telling me this? Do you think saying things like that will make me happy?"

"I... Adora I hate lying to you."Adora blushed." So, yea, I'm sc h eming against your friends but it's not like what I'm planing isn't  _ also _ for the grater good.  D oes it matter that the more important part is that I spend my time doing something I enjoy?

"And... On the way here I... I used you. What I said was  meant to help me get what I want out of this deal, and it  felt awful. I h ated it but I did it anyways." Catra  felt like  burying her head in Adora's shoulder, which always made her feel better, but they were walk ing and their relationship still wasn't what it used to be so she didn't. "I'm sorry."

"I don't think I mind it as much as you think I do,  Catra,” Adora said. “And I think it'll be easier to get what you want if I just tell them."

"But..."

"What? Do you want to stay up all night discussing this for no reason?"

"It isn't for  _no_ reason.  T hem opposing me should bring up all the kinks in the plan and let us work it out as we go. 

“Plus there's a few extra details I'd also like to win, but if you tell them my bare minimum requirements they wont give me anything else. Heck, they’d probably try negotiating me down to less than my minimum demands." Catra pleaded to Adora, making her eyes as big as she could.

"Fine, do it your way."

Catra grinned.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope the politics don't sound too preachy.  
> As always comments and critique (especially about how I handled politics) are very appreciated.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update, I was sick for a week two weeks ago.

"So," Netossa took a deep breath, "you want to control how we can use the machines."

"Yes." She answered. Sparkeles was already glaring at her, it was hilarious.

"You realize that if we allowed that we'd basically pay you a lot of money to make yourself Etheria's de facto manufacturing queen," Netossa said. She'd only learned her name ten minutes earlier but had committed it to memory, hers in particular.

"You know I _do_ like the sound of that." Most of the princesses didn't react, in fact: the most she got was a raised eyebrow from the water one.

"Like I said, we'd allow you to make some rules, three to be precise, if you dropped the whole, 'give up our thrones' thing." Seemed like the net princess was the one in charge, or at least in charge of speaking.

"I'll take three rules if you loose your royal wealth and commit to making yourself beholden to your people within five years," Catra said.

"What?" The little girl princess, Frosta? said. She was probably too young to understand words like 'beholden', which also made her definitely too young to rule a kingdom.

"She wants to make your subjects your bosses." It was Bow, the decidedly nicer of Adora’s new best friends, who decided to explain.

"That doesn't seem so bad," the flower princess said. "After all people love good rulers."

"Except most of them don't know enough about ruling a country to know if we're doing a good job," Netossa’s wife(?) said. Catra hadn't memorized her name yet. “And loosing our wealth will do nothing.”

"Then teach them, I don't know!" As far as she was concerned the only important thing was that people knew when someone was doing a terrible job of ruling.

"But not everyone is going to pay enough attention," Bow said.

"I don't care. Figure something out in the _five years_ I'm giving you." It was like they expected the starting point of an idea to be flawless already, she'd spent _one day_ on it! “Also loosing your wealth would, just in general, make the world a fairer place.”

"Don't we have experts or something? Royal advisers? Maybe we have them inform the public whenever they get to vote?" Adora suggested.

"That's all well and good," Netossa interrupted, "and maybe we'll even consider doing something like that, but not as part of this deal. Not the making our subjects our bosses thing, not unless you give us something to _really_ make it worth it, and definitely not the loosing our wealth thing." Catra would have liked to take both, but she was willing to sacrifice the second if it meant she’d get the first.

"What if I make the three rules for how you use the machines something that'll benefit the people of Etheria instead of something that'll benefit me?" It had always been the plan, but it was a good bargaining chip.

Sparkles eyes widened in surprise, the water princess looked up and straightened a tad. Netossa didn't react.

"We'd have to discuss that among ourselves." _So a strong maybe, then._

"Before that we should discuss exactly how much money you're demanding." Netossa nodded approvingly at her wife, and the way her eyes lit up when she did that all but confirmed that the purple haired princess was the one Adora had talked about.

"I want 950 000 gold, given immediately upon completion of the mission."

"That is way too much, how about 50 000 gold?" Netossa's negotiation was simplistic, a meet in the middle style. Catra wanted more.

"That's not a retirement fund. No deal."

"That's a very reasonable amount actually," the flower princess said, she obviously wasn't an economist.

"We're twenty-five people and we're all young, we'd be forced to either keep working or starve if that's all your gonna pay us.

"And I think Adora already mentioned how we could all make a fortune if we keep up our current scheme." Catra was just about ready to tune them all out for a while, paying more attention to her nails than anybody else.

"You really don't have to retire though, If you keep working and use that money to supplement your income you could make even more money with less risk to your life," Sparkles suggested.

"Except that this mission is a much bigger risk than we've ever taken before and we're definitely not going to earn as much with another job, so you're pretty much wrong on every point."

Netossa whispered something to Bow who after a while whispered back.

"Fine, 95 000 gold is enough. If you invest it well and don't spend too much at once you'll be fine for the rest of your lives," Netossa said. Was bow good at math maybe? Seeing as that was what Lonnie said was the bare minimum living wage for forty years, enough to make it to the average lifespan of little over 60.

"You know with how much you'll probably earn on taxes alone from the machines we're selling you could afford to be a lot more generous than that." She really didn't want to retire into poverty.

"What if we throw in a pardon for all your crimes?" _There it is._ She'd been waiting to see when the princesses, or rather _Glimmer_ , was going to play that card.

"What crimes?" Catra asked.

"What do you mean 'what crimes'? You've attacked countless innocent people, taken hostages, stolen everything people had, killed god knows how many people and you don't think you've done _anything_ wrong?" seemed she'd hit another one of Spakles many buttons.

"Was she supposed to commit treason just because you want her to?" Just as primed, Adora used her earlier defense against the princesses. Even if Adora didn't mind it, even knowing she'd said as much just minutes prior, it still didn't sit right with her to have used her friend, to have used _Adora,_ of all people, like that.

"We're not talking about treason-" Bow tried.

"When you're telling her she should have disobeyed direct orders you kind of are though."

"What about when she was in charge?" Sparkles asked.

"What about it? She was still under Horkad’s command and she didn't even do things all that bad anymore."

"Not that bad? She _killed_ people!" The little ice princess said.

"It was a _war_ , what do you expect?"

"Not to kill them? Soldiers weren't the only ones they killed, right?" The young princess looked to Sparkles for confirmation.

"According to our reports they kept killing civilians until the end of the war."

"Dissent was treated the same in occupied territory as if it had been in the Fright Zone. Killing a few of the dissenters is standard procedure." Catra wasn't sorry.

"Couldn't you have stopped it?" The way Adora looked at her, all sad and pleading surprised her, she thought for sure Adora would understand. Then again, it was very _her_ to ignore logic in favor of morals.

"It's standard for a reason, Adora. If we treat anyone threatening to so much as punch us like rebels, there won't be any random rebellions popping up, only an occasional organized one.

"It isn't nice, but it's what we had to do if we wanted to work without the locals getting in our way all of the time. We had a war to win and pulling our punches wouldn't have done us any favors, so we didn't." Adora still didn't look happy about it, but maybe she understood? She _had_ decided to let bygones be bygones when it came to other acts of war after all.

"So a pardon might not mean as much to you as we thought, but it should still mean something, right?" Netossa said, and for how wrong they'd been to start with she was surprisingly right

"If you don't only pardon me, but also Scorpia, Entrapta, and every soldier ranked bellow force captain. You'll also need to make it illegal to discriminate against people for having sided with the horde at any point during the war." That way she'd ensure that they all had somewhere to retire to even if they weren’t welcome in the Fright Zone, or simply didn't want to live there. "If you do _that_ I can lower it to 475 000 gold."

"That's still too much." They had no doubt already agreed to how much they would be willing to pay, and Netossa was only trying to get her down that far...

"I'm not going lower, but we could throw in whatever science Entrapta learns in the process as a bonus." Bow's eyes lit up and like an excited puppy he begged Sparkles with his eyes to say yes.

"That isn't going to be enough for us." She looked at Catra expectantly and when she didn't sweeten the deal Netossa moved on. "If that's all then I think we'll discuss the deal among ourselves now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter, but if you're getting tiered of the negotiations, don't worry: we'll take a break from it next chapter.  
> As always, Kudo's help the story get seen and coments are the lifeblood taht susstains any small creative online.


	7. Chapter 7

This time when Catra wandered the halls it wasn't with Adora, who was still in the meeting room talking with the other princesses, but with some guard. They clearly didn't trust her enough to allow her free range in their castle, but a single guard to keep _her_ in check was more of an insult than a deterrent.

The idea must have been that a guard could at least tell them if she had snuck away, which would indicate if she'd done something she wasn't supposed to...

So she'd need to decide if she'd rather sneak off and do nothing, to make them paranoid that she could have done anything, or stay with the guard and still manage to do something she wasn't supposed to without the guard noticing anything, to make them understand that their measures had been insufficient and an insult.

Those two where all her options. Adora might prefer if she behaved, but Adora's friends had insulted her and she wouldn't let it stand.

As they approached the end on the hall she entered a room at random, and found an armory. She wanders around a bit, recalling both battles and training where she saw similar weapons being used.

"Where these weapons ever used?"

"To my knowledge only once, when you attacked Bright Moondirectly." The guard wasn't far behind her, only a step or two, watching her closely. She made her tail lash about behind her in a jerking, irregular motion.

"I led that attack, got promoted for my accomplishments afterwards." The guard didn't react much to the news, but his movements slowed slightly and for a few seconds he lagged behind her. "Did anybody you know die in the attack?"

The guard reacted to _that_ though, gritting his teeth quietly behind her, and clenching his fist around the ‘crescent moon spade’ that he carried along, but he didn't say anything.

At the back of the armory there was another door and she entered it right away. On the other side she found a courtyard with some training dummies. It was empty of people, like most of the castle had been since the sun set. Seeing another door on the other side she continued that way, and entered another hallway.

From there she took some random turns, suddenly lashing her tail around wildly, at random intervals, without hitting anything. At some point she entered another room, a kitchen. She opened some cupboards saw what food royals ate. There was exclusively raw ingredients of course, but just from the amounts she could tell the chefs made lots of sweets, why else would there be so much sugar and fruit.

Another thing that surprised her was how white their flower was, whenever she saw it being sold in marketplaces it was a spotty beige, but theirs was almost white! And their plates, they weren't just normal wooden ones, or even plain ceramics, they were painted with fancy patters. That wasn't surprising but it did put things into perspective.

"I wonder what kind of food the guards here eat, considering the excess the princesses live in." The guard didn't respond. "Like, have you ever eaten any of the sweets they get? Is your family ever left hungry?" She made her tail lashed sporadically behind her, reinforcing the impression that that was just how her tail moved.

"We have enough." She understood the sentiment, in a way, seeing how her crew only had limited space for food on the ship, but being content with that when the people he interacted with on a daily basis lived in luxury was odd. And sad.

"Better than your neighbor then, bet they've gone weeks without proper meals." She abruptly stood up, quickly switching gears to a higher pace."Anyway, onwards!"

The next room she entered in her exploration was a storage room. Everything was in boxes so it was hard to tell what was stored since it was all boxed up, but it seemed like most weren't nailed shut so she'd be able to take a peak.

"What do you think is in here?"

"Does it matter?"

"Well you're no fun. We're exploring now, so I'm gonna look inside at least, feel free not to."

The first crate she checked contained paintings, pictures of fancy people in fancy clothes, probably Sparkles' ancestors, the former royals of the country. She moved on quickly, not too careful about keeping the paintings in perfect condition, but they should be fine.

The second crate had some clothes. They were kids clothes that didn't look old, not that that meant much when talking about rich people's things.

"You think these belonged to Sparkles?" The guard gave her a questioning look. " _Glimmer_? You know, the princess?"

"It's possible. It'd been before I became a guard though so I wouldn't know."

She dug through them a bit, 'accidentally' dropping a few to the floor in the process. She picked up most of them, pushing aside a panty in the process, then closed the crate after throwing them back.

"What do you want to bet that the next crate has some fancy plates?"

"There probably isn't a crate of unused plates here."

"you're probably right. A silver coin then?" Catra held up a coin to prove she had the money.

"I don't gamble."

"Suit yourself." She opened another crate, this one containing smaller boxes. Opening one of those Catra found a large, expensive looking, necklace. "And you'd've won too."

The guard took a step closer, making sure Catra didn't take anything so she make a show of closing everything without so much as touching the jewelry. Meanwhile she picked up Sparkles' panties with her tail.

She swiftly turned around, grabbing the panty in the process, and headed out of the storage room.

"I wonder what else you have here. Maybe bathrooms the size of three bedrooms? or how about closets that take up entire rooms of their own?" The guard didn't answer. "I guess you don't even know all you've got here, do you."

"I do not."

She slowed down a bit to walk next to the guard.

"Hey, what's your name, anyways?"

"Kyle."

"Really? Me and Adora grew up with a Kyle. He was useless at just about everything. Still is, actually. Or at lest he isn't good at being a pirate, but his boyfriend is so we keep him around." She dropped the panty, catching it with her tail. "Actually, I don't think I've told Adora that they ended up together yet. We grew up with his boyfriend too, y'know. And Kyle's crush was super obvious, he even drew pictures of their future family." She threw the panty onto a table as she passed it, landing it next to a flower vase, then grabbed the vase with her tail.

"I wonder what's in here." She placed the vase on the floor, right next to the doorway, while slamming her hand on the door, then pushed it open.

On the other side she found an archive room, a long room with shelves and drawers that all contained books and scrolls with a single desk at the end of it.

She looked at the books on the walls, records of crop growth, expected tax, budget breakdowns, and inter-kingdom deals.

She picked up some scrolls, listing their names as she went

"Seaworthy-Elberon cup-dispute, Alwyn investigation, Erlandia mayoral elections, Thaymor restoration project..." after having gone threw almost half the pile she started picking from another one. "Fright Zone peace treaty, On plants andPlumeria. Limits on travel to Dryl…"

When she couldn’t carry any more, she put most back where she found them, again reading the names out loud, but she on purpose said the name of another scroll for some, putting them where the other scroll would go.

After making her way down the room that way she spotted another scroll on the desk, this one titled 'Feline observations', which at a glance seemed to be results from recent spy activity, mentioning both her name and bird-catching. She leaned her butt on the desk, facing the guard.

"So, you think they list how much of the tax goes to their personal spending? If we looked at it, do you think it'd be more or less than Hordak took from the Fright Zone?" She let her tail lash behind her, making some slightly jerky motions. The guard didn't react. _Well, that's great._

"Don't know. But even if it's more, living here's better than it is to live there."

"Are you sure? When was the last time you talked with someone living in your slums? If moving here doesn't lead to prosperity, is it even right to say that living here's better than there?

"I think living rich is better than living poor, but that doesn't make either region a better place to live." She swiped the scroll with her tail, sticking it up the tail hole of her pants, tucked under her shirt and the belt wrap.

"We have nicer cities though."

"Yes, you do. I imagine it's a lot more pleasant to be here, once you get used to it, but if you're living off of scraps, that shouldn't really be how you decide where you live."

"I imagine not."

She pushed off of the desk and walked to the door. "Let's keep going, lots left to explore." She stopped at the door, looked both ways, then turned to the left, back the way she came from.

She picked the vase up with her tail, quickly transferring it to her left hand before the guard left the archive room. She went to open a door to her right, making sure to look casual while hiding the vase from the guard. She placed it on a table next to the door she entered through, picking up a candlestick from the same table.

The room was some sort of sitting room. It had a table, some chair and little else. It was kind of amazing how many rooms the castle had, so many that the royals didn't even know what to do with all of them. There were some paintings on the walls though, including one over the little table by the door.

She turned around, and dropped the candlestick, catching it with her tail. Just before she left she tipped the painting on her way out.

"Why are you turning around?"

Catra turned to face the guard as she left the room, keeping the candlestick hidden behind her. "The room was empty."

The guard looked inside for a short bit, allowing her to suck in her stomach and transfer the candlestick down under her belt wrap, before following her.

"What was even the point of that room?" she asked.

"Probably to enjoy the view? It has some big windows."

"Maybe it's just meant to make the building look nicer from the outside."

"Wouldn't that be a bit too silly?" The guard, Kyle, asked.

"Sure, but silly and vain is what princesses do best."

"Catra!" Adora's voice came from around the corner.

Catra quickly took the candlestick from her belt wrap into her right hand, as the guard caught up to her on her left, and joined her hands behind her back. Adora was jogging up to her.

"Hey, Adora."

"I've been looking everywhere for you! The others are probably done talking already." As soon as she arrived Adora turned around to lead them back to the meeting room.

"Weren't you with them, Princess?" Kyle asked.

"Hm? Oh, me and Catra are friends so they didn't want to say everything in front of me."

"Ah, so they think you're on my side."

"I kind of am?" Adora walked a bit faster. "At least a little."

"Huh." That actually made Catra happy. Probably because it was the first time ever that Adora had sided with her over her new friends.

"Now hurry up."

"I'm coming already, jeez." Catra and Kyle both hurried up a bit, but she kept her hands behind her, moving them to her head as she strutted after her ~~crush~~ friend

* * *

While they hurried back Adora realized, a bit late, that Catra hadn't seemed bored when she found her, and that could only mean one thing.

"So what kind of trouble did you cause while I was looking for you."

"Why Adora," Catra said in mock-shock, "I am insulted. I've been on my best behavior while exploring with Kyle here." _Did she just name a guard Kyle?_

"Kyle?"

"Yeah she was." The guard said, havingmisunderstood the question entirely, but he realized his mistake soon. "Oh, yeah my name is also Kyle."

"Just for the record, I didn't take anything and I didn't go anywhere I wasn't allowed to go, right?" Yeah, Catra wasn't acting suspicious _at all_.

"That's right."

"Well, now that that's cleared," Catra handed Kyle the candlestick, "feel free to return this."

"Why did I know you'd pull something like this."

"Because you know me?

"Oh, and this document I definitely wasn't allowed to see." Catra handed Kyle a scroll using her tail. She'd probably kept it up her tail hole, like she had done with a lot of things back when they were kids. It was a surprisingly good hiding spot as long as Catra didn't bend her back, since things can hide in the small groove between her back muscles.

"Where were you even keeping those things?"

Catra only wiggled her eyebrows in response.

After the guard had left Adora turned to Catra and sighed. "You know the others will get angry for this, right."

"Well if they're waiting for us the meeting should start again before Kyle has a chance to tell them so it should be fine."

"For now maybe. Why'd you even do it in the first place."

Catra shrugged. "Bored."

After that they stayed silent until they reached the old war room, which had its doors open.

Just as Adora entered Catra pulled her back. "Sorry, I lied."

"About?"

"I wasn't just bored, I actually felt insulted that they'd order a guard too keep watch over me, as if that'd stop me. Like _at all_ . So I messed around a bit, mostly in petty ways though, it shouldn't be a problem." Catra seemed honest. It wasn't like she'd expect Catra to lie about anything important to her, but it was still odd to see her so sincere. _Is she still upset about 'using' me against my friends?_

"Okay."

And then they went in, and the negotiations started again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope it wasn't too much of a tonal shift from previous chapters. Feel free to let me know what you think.  
> As always Comments are the best thing for any creator to receive, critique (even negative) is much appreciated, and kuudos help determine if any given story has been a success.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be some boat words in this chapter, and I'm not 100% sure I used them correctly, but a quick google should give you an idea of what I meant.

When Catra sat dow n she, for the first time since the negotiations started,  felt tense. The princesses had heard most of her arguments and had twice had time  apart to discuss how far they'd let her take it, what they were ready to commit themselves to. 

They di d n't, couldn't really, know  _ just _ how much Catra's plan was going to help them, both in short and long term.  _ Catra _ didn't k n ow, she could only guess, so in the end it all came down to if their estimate was close to the same as her estimate.

"So as we already said we can give you the three rules, and we can also give you 5x, but  stretched over 20 years. We'll also grant your crew and everyone ranked below force captain  immunity and make discrimination based on former horde  allegiance illegal.

"We won't abdicate, nor will we commit to being ' beholden '  to anyone , but we can do something else on that front," Nettossa said.

Catra breathed a sigh of  relief. She still wanted the princesses to  really need the approval of their people , it wasn't an unreasonable demand, but it made sense that that would be where they'd fight her the most. The fact  that they'd given her everything else, however, told volumes about how much they valued what she was offering.

"We'll need special exceptions from your twenty year payment thing."

"What exceptions?" Sparkles asked.

"If one of us decides to live on a different continent, or if you're about to loose power."

"When we're about to loose power? You want us to prioritize giving you your money when we're about to loose a war?"

"I was thinking more in line with whenever your people decide they'd want more  competent leaders and elect someone else."  If looks could kill, Sparkles would have murdered her with the glare she got, as  she all but snarled at  Catra .  "Except Nettossa, she'd good at this." Admittedly this didn't help Catra get a better deal, but it probably wouldn't much either.

"Fine. If we have reason to believe you won't get payed we'll see to it that you get what you're owed," Nettossa said, subtly making it less encompassing, but Catra didn't really mind since they’d probably still get payed, " other than that we'll only give advance payment if partial payments are unfeasible, and only to, at most, five of you."

"Ten."

"Six," Nettossa offered. Hardly  enough.

"Nine."

" _ Seven _ ."

It wasn't a hill she was willing to die on, but she'd take more if she could."Seven, you'll have to pay us even if we die, and you'll have to follow the will of the people."

"Even if they don't wa n t us to pay you?" Sparkles said.

"We won't commit to it," Nettosa added, holding firm on that point.

Now it may be possible that they, or at least some of them (like the  flower one), would implement  _ something _ even if she didn't get it as part of the deal, but she wanted more. "Commit to  _ something _ ."

"How about we talk about your three rules first, see if they really benefit 'people', as you say," Glimmer said.

Catra narrowed her eyes for a moment. Obviously Sparkles didn't trust her, generally, but it was clear to her that Sparkles was  changing the subject more than being  suspicious of her. "Fine." She shrugged. "The rules are:

"1: The company using the machines has to belongs to the workers and they vote on who becomes the company's boss.

"2: Profits are split into equal parts. No one gets more than two or less than one. Investor  gets rest when one part is at least the same as the local  minimum living wage but they can choose to allow parts to get bigger than that."

"So they don't get a number of parts?" Nettossa asked.

"No, I don't call what they take as profit for the company since it isn't owned by the investor. It's an expense.

"The third rule is that, after the investor has gotten back 1.3 times what  they put into the company, that is the construction costs for any given machine, the machine will belong to the company."

"What does that mean?" Flower princess asked.

"Just the third rule or all of them combined?" Bow asked.

"All of it?"

"It means that regardless of who it is that buys a machine the company using it has to be owned by the workers, and they’ll own it after paying back their investor with just slightly more than the investor payed for the machine." Nettossa answered.

"yeah, that. There's still some ways to exploit the  system , like if you decide to make a company with thousands of employees  more than what you need,  who agree to vote for you as the leader then give you half of their profits to not have to work while the real workers get some  extra money from you to make it worth it for them, we should probably ban that explicitly," Bow added.

"You only gave me three rules, best I could do with them," Catra said.

"And you really didn't plan to exploit it like that?" Sparkles'  suspicion was informed by their past, but she was still a little more paranoid than what would be reasonable.

"Why would I make rules like that if I wanted to exploit the  system ? I'd have to  actively give away a big  potion of the profit to random people  for that exploit. Besides almost all my demands in this negotiation have been about making things better for everybody, not just my people.

"So about that last demand of mine, that you 'commit to making yourself  beholden to your people', what will you do."

"We told you we weren't going to commit to anything." Over the past almost two hours of negotiating she'd come to respect Nettossa, but not  that much.

"And I told _you_ that i still demand it."

"What about  if you guarantee all  citizens that they won't be  punished if they talk about how you should run the country differently,"Adora suggested.

"Yeah! We should  definitely do that," Flower princess said.

"Not enough," Catra responded.

"We could hold a meeting where they can tell us how they want us to change things." Catra doubted that the flower princess was on her side, but she kept ar g uing for catra's ideas so she was more like a neutral party.

"Not enough. You could just ignore it"

"We wouldn't!" the little ice princess said.

"Irrelevant! The  _ whole point _ is to make it so the  _ next _ people in charge don't abuse their powers, or the ones after  _ that _ ."

* * *

The next morning Adora hurried down to the  docks. She'd talked it over with both Bow and Glimmer after the negotiations had ended. 

They'd all been tiered at the time because even after everything had been agreed upon,  which had taken  _ soooo _ long, Catra and Nettossa had argued over the exact phrasing for another few  hours , then they'd had nine  copies of  a document made,  containing all the specifications, compared them and then finally all princesses, including Adora, and Catra all signed the documents and kept a  c opy each.

Lonnie was checking off things  from her checklist while she moved through their boxes of things. 

"Hi, Lonnie."

"Adora?" she looked up from her clipboard, "what's up? You here to say  goodbye to Catra?"

"Ac tually, I was wondering if I could come along?" 

Lonnie’s head snapped up from the checklist. "What!?" She was dumbfounded."I heard you made up but... never-mind. You probably could, but we don't have the rations prepared for one more person."

"I think I could get them from Sea  H awk?" She wasn't actually sure he'd give it to her, or if he had enough.

"Alright. You're not getting a cut of the money Catra negotiated for, unless she splits her share with you, and you'd need the okay from Catra, but since it's you she'd never say no.

"After that we'll see if someone demands we hold an election on the issue but assuming they don't you're in."

"Right. I'll go ask Sea  H awk for the rations." She jogged away.

" A months worth," Lonnie called behind her.

* * *

Catra woke up later than usual, but that shouldn't be a problem. Her share of work was done after she'd finished the negotiations with the princesses and told Lonnie the details of the deal.

She still wasn't really happy about it, she'd compromised more than she'd expected  to  have to, in particular when it came to limiting the princesses authority.

They'd agreed to  limit the things they could do without asking their people for permission, including an inability to  declare war or  invade other territories, to guarantee the people a chance to consult them once per month with mandatory assembly of all mayors every year at least once, and to give some rights to people which couldn’t be removed  without asking citi z ens for permission to do it.  The agreement wasn't great but it was better than nothing,  and she hoped that she could get them to increase the role of the ’ parliament ’  she’d created  in the coming years.

She went downstairs and ate a hardy breakfast, since anything she didn't eat now would have to come from their rations, before slowly making her way to the port.

She passed some familiar faces,  Sea Hawk was getting some rations for his next trip, Huntara was saying goodbye to Lizara and Goatine, and some other familiar faces where doing the same with other members  of her crew. She quietly went  on-board and slunk into her quarters.

She had, of course, remodeled it after stealing Horde Primes ship, so nothing in the room was the same as what that psychopathic narcissist had decorated it with. A big consequence of that was that the room ended up being very empty. She had a decent sized desk with a normal chair in the center, in front of the windows, which lined the whole stern wall and part of the side walls as well. She also had a normal bed on the port side, an armchair on the starboard-stern corner, and a shabby bookshelf on the starboard side of the room.

She hopped on the desk and took a look at a map, but not the world map. 

Plotting _that_ course wasn't hard or complicated really, since Fright Zone port was the closest to Denebria, the continent where Horde central was located, they'd start by crossing the Galas ocean to Starci, what they did after that depended on military presence and supplies, both of which were subject to enough change that it'd be a wasted effort to consider it long before they arrived in Starci.

No the map she  was  look ing at was a map of Horde Central, provided to her by the archives kept on  P rimes ship. He'd also kept other archives there, and she'd make full use of them  as well while she plotted their  assault on his old home.

"Catraaaaa!" Entrapta burst into her quarters.

"What, Entrapta? I just got here." Catra hung her head slightly. She wasn't tiered, and she really didn't mind her friends company, but she could feel a rant  coming.

"Well Lonnie wants to talk about something, Adora just got  on-board , and I think I figured out how birds can fly!

"Well, maybe not  _ all _ of the reasons, but I have an idea about it. The problem is that they still have to be  extre ee mely light to do it which means you'd have to either have huge wings or go really fast? I'll have to preform some experiments on that, which I can totally do on the way. Probably.  A nd-"

"What!" _Adora, on the sip? Why..._

"I know it's exciting and all but as I already said we probably  _ won't _ be able to fly with it but I  _ might _ be able to make our sails better." Catra ran out out of her quarters. "Ooooh, you meant about Adora."

Her crew was still working on getting all their supplies on-board, waking up the gangplank they used to get up and then down to the cargo carrying crates of various long lasting foods, gunpowder, cannonballs, and repair materials. They hadn't really gotten into much of a fight on their last excursion but they didn't usually pack enough firepower to attack _any_ fortified city, let alone Horde Central.

It didn't take long before she spotted Adora since the girl was the only o ne besides Lonnie who wasn't  loading crates, and in about five seconds she had run up to her.

"Adora!" Hearing herself she really didn't sound cool or in  control , like she usually tried to.

"Hey, Catra! I was,  uh, wondering if I could come with you on this? I think I could help make it safer and- and I even brought along my own supplies and I don't want to get payed or anything so you won't have to worry about that."

"You want to come with us?"

"Yeah. If it's okay with you." Adora reached out to grab her hand lightly.

"Of course, I-" she composed herself quickly, "I doubt any sane person would decline having She-Ra's help on a dangerous mission, especially if it's  for free.

"Hey 're you guy cool with She-Ra coming along on this? She says she'll help us for free!"

There were a few  nods from  the members of  her crew who see med to have finished  loading crates, or they'd gotten distracted by Adora, because they had started gathering on the deck.

"So you're back with us again?" Kyle asked.

"Yeah? As long as you aren't attacking innocent people." 

The silence was deafening.

They didn't have a habit of attacking  random people or raiding villages, but they were the aggressors almost every time they fought, and  t hey'd be attacking Horde  C entral, a city full of 'innocent' people.

"Don't worry, we won't be doing that," Catra said. 

"If you say so," Goatine said. "Then I guess it's fine."

She didn't have a plan yet, had no idea how they'd get what they wanted without attacking innocent people, but she could figure it out, right? She  _ was _ a  strategic evil mastermind, after all, how hard could it be?

"If nobody's opposed, and all the crates are loaded," Lonnie looked to Scorpia

"Yeah, I think that was everything."

"Then prepare for departure." She went down to their storage room to double check tat they had everything.

Catra puled Adora away from the crowd  as it slowly separated, all of them getting  back to work .

"So why are you coming along with us?"

"Well, you said it'd be dangerous and I figure it'll be safer with me there..."  Adora said while avoiding eye contact.

"Really? That's why?"

Adora sighed.  "I really hate my job right now alright? It's sooooo boring. And I figure with you there I won't be bored no matter what."

_ Oh. _ She could feel warmth spreading across her face, thankful as always that her fur hid it well.

"You won't be able to hang out with your friends, you know. Won't you miss them?"

"But if I don't come with you I'll miss you, so...." A dora’s face grew red as a blush spread  across her face. Catra supposed she looked cute like that, so she really had no  choice but to tease her.

"Oh really, even more than your best friends?"

"I don't know why you keep saying things like that.”  Adora shook her head  slightly . “Even on the way to Bright  M oon you said that you weren't important to me, and that's just not true."  S he took a step closer to Catra.

"I said that I'm not the  _ most _ important person in your life, which is  _ fine _ . And you're avoiding the question."

"But you're still wrong, you- Even after all this time you're still the most important person in my life, so..."

"Oh.”  Both of them were blushing furiously. ”You're the most important person in my life too."

"Woow, you two seem really  embarrassed. Did you just tell  each other about how you  l- " Catra covered Entraptas mou t h.

"Not now Entrapta. I can tell you and Scorpia about it later if you're that curious so just leave us alone for now."

Entrapta shook off Catras hand.  "If you wanted to be alone you should go to the captains quarters instead of standing out in the middle of the deck."  Catra looked around her and saw several members of her crew looking her way. Of course they stopped looking as soon as they realized they’d been found out, but she’d still find a way to punish them later. "Also Lonnie wanted to know where Adora will be sleeping,  since we’re already using a l l the rooms for something . Maybe you should share a bed again like you're always saying that you used to..."

"I mean we could try doing that again, right?"  Adora said.

"Fine, but only until we figure out a more permanent place for her to sleep." Even as she said it Catra had no intention of actually figuring out another place for her childhood friend to sleep, at least not unless she got trouble falling asleep with her crush so close.

She hadn’t been too happy when Scorpia had put them in the same bed without warning,  but if Adora agreed to it she didn’t see any reason why she shouldn't take advantage of it.

When they pulled out of the harbor Catra showed  A dora around the ship. She put Scorpia in charge of teaching Adora what to do, since both of them were strong so they'd end up getting a lot of the same jobs, and then she get back to planning their  assault.

They'd only spent three days in Etheria that time, one of their shorter visits, but a lot had changed in that short time. So much so that they'd soon be allowed to retire there, and she could see Adora every day, maybe even reveal her true feelings for the stupid blonde  muscle-headed jock. Maybe. At some point.

But  until then, she and her crew still had work to do, and she'd spend her time with her three best friends in the world: Scorpia,  E ntrapta, and, most importantly, Adora.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end, for now. I'm not sure if I'll ever pick the story up again but it's been doing good so far, and I could probably keep writing it untill long after Catra's crew retiered, but I want to move on to other things (at least for now).
> 
> Next week I'll probably post a story based on a prompt submitted by Ornfo (assuming I can manage to write it). It's a bit outside of my usual wheelhouse, tone wise, but I'll give it a shot.
> 
> It'll be a She-ra fic so I hope anybody who enjoyed this story checks it out.
> 
> I'd love to hear what you thought of 'Pirate Catra' so if you have the time please do coment, iven if it's just something short.

**Author's Note:**

> Coments and critique are, as always, welcome, and I read them all. I'd also like prompts for future drabbles, because eventually I might run out of ideas of my own. Also prompts are fun.


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